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BAPTISMAL FONT 
SCULPTURE BY THORVALDSEN 


(Frontisr 






































































77 











Treasures of the Northland 


A COMPENDIUM OF THE LITERATURE, ART, 
SCIENCE, POETRY, FOLK-LORE AND 
ANCIENT MYTHS 

OF THE 

Scandinavian Race 

Including Sketches of Eminent Lives and Original 
Translations of Famous Poems 

Also Topical American Notes, with Tributes to 
Washington, Franklin and Abraham 
Lincoln 

v BY 

A. C. CLAUSEN 

Former Editor of the Scandinavian Fraternity Review 

ILLUSTRATED / 

Cole Printing Company 
Spokane, Wash. 

1919 


d z 




UL30 



Copyright, 1919, by 
A. C. Clausen 


OfcU 30 1319 r 


©CI.A559208 




Dedicated to Friends of the Author 
who, to encourage the publication 
of his writings in Book Form, have 
subscribed in a dvance for more 
than half of this, its first edition. 






4 












PREFACE 


9 


PREFACE 


For many years the author has devoted much 
of his spare time to the study of Scandinavian 
literature and biography. The immediate occa¬ 
sion, however, for reducing the fruits of this 
study to writing was his incumbancy for an 
extended period of the position of editor of the 
official organ of the Scandinavian Fraternity of 
America. While occupied in this work he availed 
himself of the opportunity offered of exploiting 
an exceedingly rich field of literary and artistic 
culture, thereby furthering, as he conceived, one 
of the objects for which this fraternity was 
founded, namely, the preservation of the history 
and legendary and the' exposition of the noble 
traits of character of the Scandinavian race. In 
doing this, while making free use of all available 
material, he chose, for reasons directly to be 
given, to confine himself in the main, to his own 
writings and impressions. 

It was not the author’s original intention to 
publish these writings in a book, but since quitting 
his editorial work, as well as during its progress, 
there have come to him so many requests for their 
compilation that he decided to collect them in 
the form here presented. However, it was not 
alone the apparent desire for the work that 
induced him to do this. During his search for 
material on the subjects covered by his writings 
the author found that a single work in the English 
language, or in any other language, calculated to 



10 TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 

give to the rising generation of Scandinavian 
descendants in this country something like a 
comprehensive idea of the varied achievements 
and the high moral and intellectual qualities of 
their ancestors, was not to be had. In the field 
of poetry, also, the translations were found to 
be quite unsatisfactory. 

Another tenet of the order mentioned is the 
encouragement of the spirit of American Democ¬ 
racy. With the practical application of this pre¬ 
cept in view the author while editing the periodi¬ 
cal mentioned produced original sketches of three 
of America’s greatest patriots, Washington, 
Franklin, and Lincoln, besides several short 
articles in prose and verse calculated to inspire 
a feeling of love and reverence for the land to 
which he as well as so many of his race not only 
owe their allegiance but their opportunity for 
general advancement. These sketches and articles 
are therefore included in this book, although not 
strictly within the scope of its title. 

Trusting that this product of his efforts may 
find a convenient place in the homes of many 
lovers of a beautiful and delightful literature, the 
author now sends it forth with the hope that a 
labor upon which he has bestowed the tender 
regard natural to one who sprang from the very 
soil of which its pages speak, may, notwithstand¬ 
ing its shortcomings, receive the generous con¬ 
sideration of the reader. 


A. C. CLAUSEN. 


Spokane, Washington, November 1, 1919. 


Contents 


PART I 

BIOGRAPHY 

Introduction . 17 

^ John Ericsson. 25 

Bjornstjerne Bjornson_ 43 

Hans Christian Andersen. 56 

George Washington. 73 

Carl Linne. 84 

Henrik Ibsen. 97 

Bertel Thorvaldsen . . 117 

Benjamin Franklin.130 

Esais Tegner.148 

Edvard Hagerup Grieg.....- 168 

Neils Wilhelm Gade.183 

Abraham Lincoln.:188 

Jenny Lind... 196 

Ole Bull.-.206 

Jacob A. Riis.222 


















PART II 


POETRY (Original Translations) 

At the Parting Hour (I afskedets Stand) 
[Bottiger] .231 

Welcome and Farewell (Valkommen och 
farval [Grafstrom].232 

Boyhood Fancies (Nar jag blir stor) [Oster- 
gren] .233 

What Shall You Bring Me? [Newmann].234 

When Storms Come Sweeping (Naar Stormen 
ryker up) [Janson]...236 

I Cherish a Friend (Jeg Ejer en Ven) [Bjorn- 
son] .:.237 

My Nook Among the Mountains (Min lilla 
vra bland bergen) [Wadman].238 

A Danish Lance (I alle de Riger og Lande) 
[Ingemann] .239 

We’ll Meet Again (Vi ses igen) [Rydberg].240 

The First Kiss [Satherberg]. .241 

I Know a Greeting (Jag vet en helsning) 
[Geijer] .242 

The Castle and the Hut (Slottet och kojan) 
[Lenngren] .245 

The Flight to America (Flugten til Amerika) 
[Winther] . 247 

Freedom of the Press (Sang for Trykeffrihe- 
den) [Wergeland].’.254 

Childhood Memories (Et Barndomsminde) 
[Welhaven] . 255 

















Fanrik Stal (Prelude to Fanrik Stals Sagner) 
[Runeberg] . 259 

Scandinavian Belles-Lettres (Essay).265 

Scandinavian Lyrics (Essay).273 

The Second Evening (from Andersen’s Pic¬ 
ture Book Without Pictures).274 

Three American Scandinavian Poets.276 

PART III 

MYTHOLOGY (Viking Lore) 

Odin and the Eddas.283 

The Creation...285 

Characteristics of the Vikings...287 

The Landvaettir.290 

Origin of Thor’s Hammer.293 

The Abduction of Iduna.296 

The Death of Balder.299 

The Fenris Wolf.304 

Thor’s Visit to Jotenheim. 305 

Ragnarok, The Twilight of the Gods.307 

PART IV 

HISTORY AND LANGUAGE 

Discovery of Vinland.313 

Iceland the Enchanted.316 

The Runes.319 




















Similarity of English and Scandinavian 
Words __322 


Studies in English...323 

Scandinavian Names. 325 

Scandinavian Studies (Prof. Egge).327 

Origin of the English Language.330 

Old Scandinavian Superstitions.338 


PART V 

EDITORIALS 

Miscellaneous Topics, Original Poems, Poetic 
Fragments ...343-363 









List of Illustrations 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

Baptismal Font [Thorvaldsen].Frontispiece 


John Ericsson (Portrait). 24 

Ericsson’s Mausoleum at Filipstad, Sweden. 33 

Engagement Between the Monitor and the 

Merrimac.41 

Bjornstjerne Bjornson (Portrait). 42 

Bjornson’s Birthplace at Kvikne Parish, Nor¬ 
way . 49 

Hans Christian Andersen (Portrait). 57 

Andersen’s Birthplace at Odense, Denmark_ 63 

George Washington (Portrait)..... 72 

Washington’s Home at Mount Vernon. 79 

Carl Linne (Portrait). 85 

Linne’s Birthplace at Rashult, Sweden. 91 

Henrik Ibsen (Portrait)...,. 96 

Ibsen’s Boyhood Home Near Skien, Norway.105 

Bertel Thorvaldsen (Portrait).116 

Thorvaldsen’s Museum at Copenhagen.123 


















Thorvaldsen’s Grave...-.129 

Benjamin Franklin (Portrait), Birthplace, 
Boston . 131 

Franklin Signing the Declaration of Inde¬ 
pendence .-..137 

Esaias Tegner (Portrait).149 

Lund Cathedral, Sweden, Scene of Tegner’s 
Graduation . 159 

Edvard Hagerup Grieg (Portrait).:.169 

Grieg Composing in the Mountains of Nor¬ 
way ........175 

Neils Wilhelm Gade (Portrait).182 

Abraham Lincoln (Portrait).189 

Lincoln’s Birthplace Near Hodgenville, Ky.194 

Jenny Lind (Portrait)..•,.197 

Ole Bull (Portrait).207 

Jacob A. Riis (Portrait).223 

Anna Maria Lenngren (Portrait).244 

J. C. S. Welhaven and Henrik Wergeland 
(Portraits) . 252 

Johan Ludvig Runeberg (Portrait).258 

Odin on His Throne. 282 

Thor Attacking the Frost Giants. 292 

The Viking. 310 

The Runic Alphabet.319 
























INTRODUCTION 


17 


INTRODUCTION 


In the field of esthetic pursuits the Scandi¬ 
navian people have always shown preeminence. 
The love of poetry is traditional among them, 
being an especial attribute of the god Odin who, 
it is said, invented the runes in order that he 
might thereby record the songs of the ancient 
skalds. Balder, son of Odin, was a god of Sun¬ 
shine and worshiped as such, and Frigga, his 
mother, was a votary of Beauty. Brage was 
the god of Poetry and Song, and then there was 
old Mimir who sat at the Fountain of Memory 
and Reflection. 

The characters thus briefly mentioned are 
among the most prominent of the deities of the 
pre-Christian religion of the Scandinavians, a 
religion which, though crude, displays a pic¬ 
turesque philosophy of life unmarred by the gross 
sensuality common to most pagan beliefs. 

This love of Beauty manifests itself also by the 
unfeigned delight of the people in the manifold 
aspects of nature. Nowhere in the world is nature 
more adored than in the Scandinavian countries. 
The celebration of the advent of spring and sum¬ 
mer—May-Day and Midsummer-Day, is national 
in character and extent as regular annual festal 
seasons. 

Little wonder, then, that such a people should 
have produced among them such world-famed 
esthetic geniuses as Linne, the King of Flowers; 



18 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


Tegner, the Homer of the North; Thorvaldsen, 
the Master-sculptor, and Ibsen, the Shakespeare 
of modern times. 

It might be interesting to inquire how it hap¬ 
pens that a people situated so remotely from the 
more densely populated sections of Europe and 
so little heard of in the annals of antiquity, should 
nevertheless from an early period down to the 
present have developed so greatly in the higher 
arts of civilization. To even a casual student of 
the subject, however, the query itself would sug¬ 
gest the answer, namely, that it is because of 
this very geographical situation. The Land of 
the Midnight Sun, with its magnificent displays of 
the boreal aurora, the invigorating climate, the 
immunity of the people from invasion, the long 
intervals of peace, the inspiring environment of 
mountain crests, of dreamy woodlands and leaping 
waters; the long, pensive winters and the short 
brilliant summers'; the all-embracing seas and 
fjords with their lashing surges, their soft, sub¬ 
duing murmurs, their changing wonders and allur¬ 
ing mists, all have had their share in developing 
the imagination and in shaping the character and 
thoughts of the people. “Dark and true and ten¬ 
der is the North.” 

This isolation, too, coupled with the influence 
of their surroundings, has from earliest times 
fostered in the nature of the Scandinavians that 
spirit of independence and love of liberty without 
which no people have ever progressed far into 
the reaches of creative ideas. It is a notable fact 
that amid the practice of compulsory servitude 
prevalent among most of the nations of the earth, 


INTRODUCTION 


19 


serfdom was never tolerated here, and that among 
the fastnesses of their mountain defiles was born 
that principle of equal justice which today is not 
only theirs but the proud possession of their 
collateral kindred, the English-speaking race. 

Reference has been made to the English-speak¬ 
ing peoples as “collateral” kindred of the Scan¬ 
dinavian race. Had it not been for the invasion 
of England by the Romans near the dawn of the 
Christian era, this statement might not have con¬ 
tained this qualification. Even so, by virtue of 
the gradual encroachment of the Scandinavians * 
which followed the evacuation of the Romans, 
culminating in the conquest of England by the 
Danes under Canute the Great in the eleventh 
century, the English-speaking nations in their 
language to this day, as well as in their most 
prominent characteristics, disclose unmistakable 
signs of close racial affinity with the Viking deni¬ 
zens of Saga Land. 

The foregoing explains why the language of 
England lends itself so readily to the translation 
of Scandinavian verse and why the Scandinavians 
coming to America so easily and quickly acquire 
a practical knowledge of the language of their 
adopted land. To attain to a comprehensive view 
of the intellectual progress of the Anglo-Saxon 
race, a study of the literature of both is quite 
essential. At any rate, it is interesting as well 
as curious to note in such pursuit the many 
traits of character possessed by them in common 
and the great strides both have made in the 
amelioration of the lot of the common people 
as well as in the development of the intellect in 
all that makes for the uplift and betterment of 
mankind. 










TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


PART l 

Biography 






N ^ 
































































































. 





























































. 

' 










































JOHN ERICSSON 










JOHN ERICSSON 


25 


John Ericksson 


There are crises in the affairs of nations which 
nothing short of genius can control. Great events 
often produce great men—that is to say, men 
equal to the occasion. History has crowned 
many such and Fame has lent her laurels, but 
never perhaps has circumstance given to a single 
man such an opportunity for the play of genius, 
and such unbounded praise from a grateful nation 
and an admiring world, as was bestowed upon 
the subject of our sketch. 

John Ericsson, or “Captain” Ericsson as he • 
became familiarly known, was born at Filipstad. 
Varmland, Sweden, in 1803. His father, Olof 
Ericsson, was an educated man who for some 
years operated a mine of which he was part 
owner. His mother was a woman of strong 
mind and great force of character. From her 
he inherited his unbending will and tireless 
energy. Notwithstanding reverses of fortune 
which overtook the father while the son was yet 
in his teens, the boy was given a good education, 
particularly along those lines in which he had 
shown especial aptitude, such as chemistry, alge¬ 
bra and geometry. The family having removed 
to Forsvik, where the father was employed as 
foreman of a gang of rock blasters on the Gota 



26 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


Canal, our young inventor soon found ample 
scope for the play of his natural bent. Field¬ 
drawing became his delight and he soon excelled 
his teachers in the art. From the controller of 
the works nearby he learned the English lan¬ 
guage and, being an apt scholar and speaking in 
this tongue whenever he had an opportunity, 
became exceedingly proficient in its use. Thus 
he received most of his education in the school 
of experience fostered by an environment exactly 
suited to his talents, rather than in institutions 
where theories form the basis of knowledge. 
Years afterwards when a friend said to him 
“It is a pity you did not graduate from a tech¬ 
nological institute,” he replied: “No, it was very 
fortunate. Had I taken a course at such an insti¬ 
tution I should have acquired such a belief in 
authorities that I should never have been able to 
develop originality and make my own way in 
physics and mechanics, as I now propose to do.” 

Foreshadowing the military tendency of his 
nature we find him at the age of fourteen in 
charge of six hundred Swedish troops employed 
at the Gota Canal, although still so short that in 
using his leveling instrument he had to stand on 
a stool to reach the eye-piece. At seventeen he 
joined the Twenty-third Rifle Corps, and as 
Ensign soon became the best marksman on the 
list. At the age of twenty-four he received the 
title of Captain in the Swedish army, and retained 
that title with pride as long as he lived. It was 
this military experience that induced him to take 
up the study of guns and from this the study of 
explosives. But army life was not destined to 
hold him long, for he saw with the prophetic eye 


JOHN ERICSSON 


27 


of a geuius that there existed a greater field for 
him in the world of mechanics wherein, as the 
sequel proved, he was to invent machines that 
greatly strengthened the arm of warfare both, on 
land and sea, and we next find him first at Havre, 
France, on a stafif of shipbuilders, and then in 
England with $270 of borrowed cash in his pocket, 
arriving in London on May 18, 1826. Here, while 
unsuccessful in introducing his “Flame Engine,” 
he formed a partnership with the master engineer 
and manufacturer, John Braithwaite. His orig¬ 
inality now received a wide scope. Among the 
number of useful devices he invented a centrifu¬ 
gal blower, thus becoming the pioneer in intro¬ 
ducing that great economy—mechanical draft. 
His next invention was the surface condenser 
for steam engines, replacing the water-jet system, 
reducing the exhaust steam and returning it to 
the boiler. Next we find him evolving the plan, 
now universal in vessels of war, of protecting 
machinery from shot by placing it below the 
water-line. 

He next turned his attention to land devices and 
brought forth the first steam fire engine, but in 
spite of the apparent utility of this invention it 
was not until 1860 that it came into general use. 
In October, 1829, he constructed the “Novelty” 
locomotive to compete with Stephenson’s 
“Rocket” for a prize of five hundred pounds, and 
while he did not win the prize owing to an unfor¬ 
tunate breakdown of his engine near the goal, 
the pace of 32 miles an hour set by the “Novelty” 
as against the 24 miles per hour of the “Rocket,” 
as well as its smoothness in running, proved it 
to be the better machine of the two. In fact, the 


28 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


performance of his little locomotive was so 
remarkable as to greatly heighten his fame as 
an engineer. 

The inventor was now in the prime of his 
mental powers and there issued from his hand 
and brain so many devices that a description of 
them would go far beyond the limits of this 
article. Not all of these were successful, but 
many of them, with here and there some slight 
modification, are in general use at this day. Per¬ 
haps the most curious and in some respects the 
most useful of his inventions at this period of 
his career was the Caloric Engine, in which 
heated air is used as the motive force in place of 
steam. This device, improved somewhat by 
others, is still in use in pumping on large farms, 
and as it needs no water in its operation it is 
especially useful in arid regions such as Arizona 
and New Mezico. Another product of this busy 
mind was the improvement of the “sounding lead” 
used for finding depths at sea, whereby the depth 
is registered upon a dial. This device, with some 
alteration, is still in use. Its greatest utility over 
its predecessor consists in enabling mariners to 
take soundings without stopping their ships. 

While yet wedded to his engineering projects 
Ericsson’s attention was attracted to a young 
member of the fair sex named Amelia Byam. 
She was a beautiful and lovely woman, “the most 
fascinating I have ever beheld,” he used to say. 
She was nineteen and he thirty-three when they 
went to the altar and were married in St. John’s 
Church, Paddington. Their married relation 
lasted until 1865, when they parted, and although 
a correspondence was kept up between them until 


JOHN ERICSSON 


29 


his death, they never met again. It was a case of 
tw r o noble hearts divergent in their aspirations; 
the one a woman who craved devotion, the other 
a man with a creative desire that overshadowed 
all other motives of life. 

His next great task in the inventive field was 
the screw propeller as applied to vessels. The 
principle was well understood before Ericsson’s 
time, but he was the first to render it practicable, 
although he had to fight against others who 
claimed priority or infringement over the device 
until finally it was decided that it could not be 
protected by a patent. The British Government, 
however, divided $100,000 equally among five 
claimants, of which Ericsson was one. But money 
was, after all, not the end and aim of this great 
son of Sweden, as witness the fact that many 
of his inventions, including his greatest one soon 
to be mentioned, were not even patented, and 
hence we find him going bankrupt in England at 
the time of a widespread panic, and even for a 
short period immured in the debtor’s prison in 
Fleet street. 

But misfortune, while painful in its visitation, 
has often proved a blessing in disguise. He grew 
disgusted with the tenacity of the English admir- 
ality for ancient forms and methods, and grasped 
the first opportunity to visit the land of oppor¬ 
tunity, the land where his fame was destined to 
become firmly established,—the United States of 
America. His last'work in England was to build 
a steamboat which he named in honor of his 
friend, Francis B. Ogden, fitted with two pro¬ 
pellers working independently, which moved at 
the then remarkable speed of ten miles an hour, 


30 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


but notwithstanding this performance the Lords 
of the Admiralty shut their eyes and refused to 
believe that the screw was a better propeller than 
the paddle. On the other hand, Lieutenant Rob¬ 
ert F. Stockton, of the United States Navy, who 
accompanied Ericsson on the trip, was so grati¬ 
fied that he immediately ordered for the United 
States Navy two iron steamboats, to be fitted with 
Ericsson’s steam machinery and propellers. One 
of these vessels was named by the inventor the 
“Robert F. Stockton.” Their success was com¬ 
plete, and with this performance as a precursor 
and with Stockton’s assurance of further encour¬ 
agement, he sailed for New York in the Great 
Western, arriving on November 23, 1839. 

After some difficulties owing to opposition from 
political sources he was awarded the contract for 
building a steam frigate which he named the 
“Princeton,” in honor of Captain Stockton’s place 
of residence in New Jersey. Now began his activ¬ 
ities in earnest. From the Mechanics Institute 
in New York he won a prize with his fire engine. 
In 1841 the canal barge “Ericsson” was com¬ 
pleted from his plans and on her first trip from 
Brockville to Montreal covered a distance of one 
hundred and forty miles in sixteen hours, besides 
keeping a safe course through the most tumul¬ 
tuous rapids of the St. Lawrence river. Many 
other vessels were now fitted with Ericsson’s 
propeller until by the end of 1843 not less than 
forty-two boats were thus equipped. 

Owing to the bursting of one of the big guns 
on the Princeton, in the construction of which 
gun Ericsson, by the way, took no part, the 
inventor brought forth a device which has come 


JOHN ERICSSON 


31 


into general use. Hoops of wrought iron were 
shrunk over the breech of the gun up to its trun¬ 
nion-bands, arranged in two tiers, one above an¬ 
other, so as to break joints. Thus reinforced 
a gun was fired three hundred times with charges 
varying from 25 to 35 pounds of powder and with 
shot weighing 212 pounds, which pierced a 
wrought iron target 4% inches thick. During the 
Civil War the large guns most used were those 
of Major Rodman and Captain Parrott, and these 
as forged and hooped were designed from Erics¬ 
son’s weapon on the Princeton. 

Passing over a number of inventions of minor 
importance but of considerable utility, we come 
now to the one original device which in the imme¬ 
diate effect it had upon the issue it was made to 
encounter and in the result its success had upon 
the method of naval warfare, has not been sur¬ 
passed, if equalled, in the entire field of mechan¬ 
ical discovery. 

At the critical moment in the Civil War when 
the converted frigate Virginia, renamed the Mer- 
rimac, was playing havoc with the Federal fleet 
at Hampton Roads, Ericsson, then fifty-nine years 
old, completed his famous iron-clad, the Monitor, 
and on March 6, 1862, she proceeded to the place 
of conflict, arriving at the Roads and on the scene 
of battle on the night of March 9th. She anchored 
in front of the frigate Minnesota, which was 
aground, and waited the renewal of the Merri- 
mac’s onslaught in the morning. The sloop 
Cumberland had already been sunk, the frigate 
Congress had been disabled and burned, both 
with an apalling loss of life, and now it was 
the Confederate iron-clad’s intention to destroy 


32 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


the Minnesota, which was helpless, as well as 
to complete the destruction of all the other ships 
in the vicinity, then go up the Potomac and attack 
Washington city. On the following morning 
the Merrimac came out to finish her work when 
her crew beheld a small object lying under the 
huge bow of the Minnesota which resembled 
what they termed a “tin can on a shingle,” or a 
“cheese box on a raft,” but Captain Jones, her 
commander, soon realized that the new outlandish 
vessel was his foremost adversary. It was a 
bright, sunny day, and throngs of spectators 
lined the shores to behold the duel. The Monitor 
came out to meet her and after a few introduc¬ 
tory shots between them they closed at short 

range and the battle was on. “D-n it,” said 

one of the men on the Merrimac when an eleven 
inch ball struck the Confederate craft such a 
blow that she shivered from stem to stern, “the 
thing is full of guns!” The Monitor offered such 
a small target and such a “slippery” one that, 
although struck twenty-two times, she suffered 
no appreciable injury, while the Merrimac was 
so beaten up that her engines could hardly work 
and sagging at the stern she quit the field never 
to return. 

Chief Engineer Alban S. Stimers, U. S. N., 
who accompanied the Monitor as a military 
observer, in a letter to Ericsson soon following 
the battle, after describing the events of the 
day, concludes: “Captain Ericsson, I congratu¬ 
late you upon your great success; thousands here 
this day bless )'ou. I have heard whole crews 
cheer you; every man feels that you have saved 
the nation by furnishing us with the means to 







JOHN ERICSSON 


35 


whip an iron-clad frigate that was, until our 
arrival, having it all her own way with our most 
powerful vessels.” 

The tide of applause that flowed in upon the 
inventor was unprecedented. From State Legis¬ 
latures, from Chambers of Commerce and Boards 
of. Trade, from public meetings convened for the 
purpose, came laudations upon the Monitor and 
her inventor. On March 28, 1862, Congress 
passed a joint resolution acknowledging the enter¬ 
prise, skill, energy, and foresight of Captain John 
Ericsson, displayed in the construction of the 
Monitor, which arrested the destruction then 
proceeding by the enemy, and according him the 
thanks of the nation for his great services. 

From the construction of this wonderful little 
vessel Ericsson’s only profit was as one of her 
builders; he did not patent it as an invention. 
Several years later it was proposed in Congress 
that the inventor should be accorded some mate¬ 
rial recognition for his services, but he replied : 
“Nothing could induce me to accept any remu¬ 
neration from the United States for the Monitor 
invention, once presented by me as my contri¬ 
bution to the glorious Union cause, the triumph 
of which freed four million bondmen.” 

But, unlike so many who have served a great 
cause, there came substantial financial reward 
to our inventor by reason of the great demand 
for vessels of the Monitor type, and within a 
week from the encounter at Hampton Roads the 
Government requested him to build six monitors, 
and while these were still on the stocks he was 
requested to furnish the plans for four more. 
On June 18, 1862, the Secretary of the Navy 


36 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


asked him to construct two monitors of a larger 
type, named the Dictator and the Puritan, the 
former having a displacement of 4,971 tons. 

It has been, truly said that “Ericsson was a 
great engineer because he was first of all a great 
man.” But, like all great men, he had his eccen¬ 
tricities, his individualism; and having now con¬ 
sidered him as an engineer, as a great inventor, 
let us look at him as a citizen. 

At twenty-one he is described as handsome 
and dashing, with a thick cluster of brown curly 
hair encilcling a white massive forehead. His 
mouth was delicate but firm, nose straight, eyes 
light blue, clear and bright but with a slight 
expression of sadness. Plis complexion was 
brilliant with the freshness and glow of healthy 
youth, and broad shoulders carried a most splen¬ 
didly proud, erect head. He was fond of good 
attire and always appeared neatly and even richly 
dressed. Only within narrow bounds did he ever 
master the art of living with others, although he 
was kind and generous to the point of magna¬ 
nimity. His real friends loved him. When he 
felt himself to be right he would not brook oppo¬ 
sition. He loved children and would often romp 
and play with them. His own expertness made 
him an exacting master, and he was so accurate in 
his drawings and calculations that on one occa¬ 
sion when he had omitted a vent-hole in some 
plans his assistants were filled with glee because 
for once they had “got one on the old man.” His 
love for the land that gave him birth was con¬ 
stant and deep. While he cherished America 
and became one of her adopted citizens, living 


JOHN ERICSSON 


37 


among the American people for fifty years, his 
“hemlangtan” never forsook him. 

In 1867, when a terrible famine prevailed in large 
sections .of his native land, he sent $5,600 for the 
purchase of grain seed for the next harvest. He 
loved his mother with all his heart and when 
nothing else could tempt him to leave his drawing 
board he would turn from it to respond to a 
letter from her, and these replies usually con¬ 
tained money for her comfort. To his sister in 
Sweden, Mrs. Odner, he gave a commodious 
house and the proceeds of a patent yielding a 
yearly income. He lived for two years at the 
Astor House in New York City, from whence he 
removed to 95 Franklin Street; here he remained 
until 1864, when he bought a house at 36 Beach 
Street for $20,000, where he made his home until 
his death. He seldom went out sightseeing, pre¬ 
ferring the life of a recluse except when duty 
called him. He was always pondering some prob¬ 
lem. His rules of living were simple in the 
extreme. His plain food and drink were carefully 
selected and exactly measured. After his fiftieth 
year he drank no alcoholic liquors. He was fond 
of strong tea and other aromatics, but never used 
tobacco in any form. His sleeping-room windows 
were always slightly open, winter and summer. 
For two hours every morning he practised calis- 
thenic exercises, followed by a sponge-bath and 
a vigorous rubbing. Plumbing, as then prevail¬ 
ing, was not to his liking, and so there was no 
bath-room in his house. In his eighty-third year 
he wrote: “I have important work before me. 
and hence live like a man training for a fight. 
My reward is unbroken health. I digest my food 


3S 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


now as well as I did at thirty. Nor is my muscle 
less tough and elastic than at that age.” 

Ericsson’s pride in his family name was as 
strong as his love for the land from which he 
sprung. This is illustrated by a letter to his 
brother Nils who, on being made a baron as a 
reward for his great services as chief of the con¬ 
struction of Sweden’s system of railways, had 
altered the spelling of his name to “Ericson,” 
thereby dropping one letter “s”. On learning 
of this, he wrote: “I can never forget the un¬ 
pleasantness caused me by this annulling of rela¬ 
tionship. Possibly your wife has had her share 
in it. If so, she will find some day that the blotted 
out letter will cost her children half a million.” 

Among the many honors conferred upon the 
subject of our sketch, besides those already 
referred to, may be mentioned: By Sweden, 
Knight of the Order of Vasa, an order founded 
by Gustavus III to reward important service to 
the nation; Knight Commander of the Order of 
the North Star, for promoting the public good 
and useful institutions; Commander of the Order 
of St. Olaf, to reward distinction in the arts and 
sciences. From King Alfonso of Spain he re¬ 
ceived the Order of Naval Merit, with the white 
badge and star, which confers personal nobility 
and bestowed upon Ericsson the title of “Excel 
lency.” From the Emperor of Austria, a special 
gold medal for his labors in behalf of science. 
From the Society of Ironmasters of Sweden, a 
gold medal; and he was elected to honorary mem¬ 
bership in scientific, historical, religious, and 
agricultural institutions innumerable. But he 
took most pride in his simple title of “captain.” 


JOHN ERICSSON 


39 


and in the diploma of LL. D. received from the 
Wesleyan University in 1882. 

In his eighty-sixth year he drew the plans of his 
solar engine and received it from the work-shop 
shortly thereafter. This wonderful machine com¬ 
pleted the great cycle of his inventive genius 
which began with the flame engine that he built 
in Jemtland, Sweden, seventy years before. Hav¬ 
ing lived so long a life he was forced to expe¬ 
rience the loss of many relatives and steadfast 
friends, resulting in the gradual depression of his 
heroic spirit which aggravated the advancing 
feebleness of his frame. On February 23rd, 1889, 
the iron fabric gave way but the superb physique 
battled with the dark angel until the morning of 
March 8th, when his immortal soul drifted away 
to the shores of the great beyond. 

The long and weighty record of his achieve¬ 
ments now set forth in the daily press startled the 
busy world, most of whose votaries, absorbed in 
the eternal present and its alluring charms, had 
quite forgotten the venerable man who had spent 
the greater portion of his life in their midst. Ten¬ 
derly they laid his body in a receiving vault of the 
Marble Cemetery in Second Street, New York, 
after an impressive funeral service at Trinity 
Church, attended by many personal friends, and 
representatives of Swedish and other leagues. 
But this was not destined to be his final resting 
place. In response to a desire expressed by the 
Swedish nation, and amid impressive ceremonies 
in the streets and harbor of New York City, his 
remains were taken back to Sweden by the United 
States government, on board the U. S. S. Balti¬ 
more on August 26, 1889, and on September 14th 


40 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


the historic ship dropped anchor with its precious 
burden in the beautiful harbor of Stockholm. 
With honor and reverence the funeral train was 
greeted all the way from Stockholm to Filipstad, 
where the interment took place. Marking his 
place of burial and commemorating his achieve¬ 
ments, there stands in Filipstad a magnificent 
Mausoleum, an excellent photographic reproduc¬ 
tion of which accompanies this sketch. 

In a message referring to the incident and dis¬ 
cussing the relations of our country with the sev¬ 
eral nations of Europe, President Harrison said: 
“This restoration of the remains of John Erics¬ 
son to Sweden afforded a gratifying occasion to 
honor the memory of the great inventor, to whose 
genius our country owes so much, and to bear 
witness to the unbroken friendship which has 
existed between the land which bore him and our 
own, which claimed him as a citizen.” 

The Northland gave him birth and culture, 
America gave him means and opportunity, and 
to both in return he gave his all; to the first his 
unquenchable love and another star in her glo¬ 
rious firmament of illustrious names; to the other 
the richest fruits of his genius and his ardent zeal 
for the cause of Liberty and Union. He belongs 
to both. Neither can write its history without 
his name and achievements. It is fitting that he 
should have been taken back to the land that 
bore him, there to rest where he first beheld the 
teeming world in whose activities he was destined 
to play so important a part,—there to rest, in 
Filipstad, in his dear old Sweden, the place where 
belonged to be. 



Engagement Between the Monitor 
and Merrimac 





BJoRNSTJERNE BJoRNSON 







BJoRNSTJERNE BJoRNSON 


43 


Bjornstjerne Bjornson 


Often I wonder what there might be 
Over the lofty mountains! 

Here the snow is all I see, 

And ’round about the dark green tree: 
Yearning to leave, I ponder,— 

Dare I go over yonder? 


Yes, we love thee with devotion, 

Land of mountain domes, 

Rising storm-lashed o’er the ocean, 

With its thousand homes; 

Love it, love it while we’re thinking 
Of our forbears grand, 

As the saga-night lies sinking, 

Dreaming on our land! 

If the writer had done nothing else than 
create the foregoing lines, he would have won 
his way into the hearts of his countrymen. And, 
strangely enough, these stanzas, although but 
fragments of two of Norway’s most beloved 
songs, reflect to a marked degree the nature of 
the man who wrote them. He longed to roam 
and often journeyed to see what there might be 
“over the lofty mountains” that hedged about 
his early home, but his deep, fervent love for 
the land that bore him always brought him 
back, back to its rugged peaks and fjords, to its 




44 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


sagas and surges, to its wonderful crimson- 
yellow twilight that mingles and melts with the 
starry night, lingering on the horizon like a 
dream; back to father, mother and kindred, back 
to old neighbors and friends, to the people he 
loved so well. 

Bjornstjerne Bjornson (Bear-star Bearson), 
affectionately known as “The Grand Old Man of 
Norway,” was born in the parish of Kvikne, in 
the region of the Dovre Mountains of Norway, 
on December 8, 1832. His father, at the time 
pastor of the parish, was a typical son of the 
soil, of massive build and stern, rugged nature. 
Little is known of his mother, except that she 
was a woman of intelligence and refinement bent 
upon the education of her children. The father 
being transferred to another parish, that of 
Romsdal, in Western Norway, the family re¬ 
moved thither in 1838. Here the cold rugged¬ 
ness of the mountain masses sharply contrast 
with the verdant splendor of the valley far be¬ 
low. Dark fjords with stretching arms reach far 
into the hinterland. In some places vertical 
cliffs rise to a prodigious height sheer from the 
water’s edge, making withal a scene profoundly 
weird and grand. 

Amid such scenes as these, this wildly beau¬ 
tiful environment, was fostered the youth whose 
poems and narratives breath the very air of Nor¬ 
way, and find a responsive chord in every heart 
filled with the love of nature and of nature’s 
God. 

When the boy was twelve years old, he was 
sent to the Grammar school at Molde, to pre¬ 
pare him ultimately for the University. But 


BJoRNSTJERNE BJoRNSON 


45 


like most young geniuses he was a dull student. 
“They want me to study and read so much," he 
said, “while I prefer to write.” While he fondly 
dreamed of becoming a poet he was prosaically 
told that he was foolish. How often star-gazing 
is mistaken for stupidity! When at the age of 
fifteen he founded a society and started a paper 
called “Liberty,” he was immediately christened 
an agitator, and treated accordingly. But there 
must have been something in the young man 
which induced his parents to persevere in their 
evident determination to make something of 
their son, for we find him at the age of twenty 
entering the Christiania University, where he 
found class-mates among such as Henrik Ibsen, 
Asmund Vinje and Jonas Lie, all destined to 
become men of great renown. 

But, like Ibsen, young Bjornson did not dis¬ 
tinguish himself as a student. He was too much 
enamored of the Muse to dally with cold facts 
and figures, and his lively, robust nature re¬ 
belled against the monotonous droning of the 
class-room. Some one has aptly said that col¬ 
leges are places where diamonds are dimmed and 
pebbles arc polished; and hence it was doubt¬ 
less fortunate for him as well as for the world 
that he played the truant in his studies and 
delved into poetry and journalism at every pos¬ 
sible occasion, thereby maintaining a luster 
which the attrition of scholastic grind too often 
mars beyond repair in a mind where genius sits 
enthroned. 

The course at the university was not com¬ 
pleted, for finding its atmosphere too stifling for 
his bent he betook himself to writing dramatic 


46 - TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


criticisms and reviews of current literature. A 
brief journey to Upsala, Sweden, whither he 
had gone as a correspondent, opened his eyes to 
a full consciousness of his special calling. “When 
I came back from the journey/’ he says, “I slept 
three whole days with a few brief intervals for 
eating and conversation. Then I wrote down 
my impressions of the journey, but just because 
I had first lived, then written, the account 
got style and color; it attracted attention, and 
made me all the more certain that the time had 
come. I packed up, went home, thought it all 
over, wrote and rewrote ‘Between the Battles’ 
in a fortnight, and traveled to Copenhagen 
with the completed piece in my trunk; I would 
be a poet!” 

At the age of twenty-five he wrote what many 
regard as his masterpiece,—“Synnove Solbak- 
ken.” He was then residing in the Danish cap¬ 
ital. It was a supreme moment in his life; he 
believed he had written a work of great merit, 
but would others regard it so? He succeeded 
in getting a reader of note to examine the work 
for a bribe of a bottle of punch. The critic read 
while the author with bated breath sat silently 
waiting for some expression of approval, but 
not a murmur escaped the reader. The poet 
was in great suspense, almost in agony at the 
protracted silence, with not a word of comemnt. 
At last the end was reached, the book was closed 
with a bang, while the reader rose and in a loud 
voice, quivering with excitement, exclaimed: 
“The devil may take me, if that isn’t the best 
book I have read in all my life!” 

A year later, in 1858, appeared “Arne,” an- 


BJoRNSTJERNE BJoRNSON 


47 


other peasant idyl and perhaps the most remark¬ 
able of Bjornson’s works. In it may be found 
the poem the first verse of which heads this 
article. In it is pictured that longing propen¬ 
sity, so well emphasized in the national char¬ 
acter, to overstep the narrow limits of life and be 
off—“over the lofty mountains”; the Viking 
instinct of a desire for travel and adventure. 
This story not only brought its author into the 
front rank of contemporary writers, but also 
marked a new era in Norwegian literature. 

The following fifteen years of the poet’s life 
were richly productive, including two prose idyls, 
“A Happy Boy” and “The Fisher Maiden,” .to¬ 
gether with a number of smaller pieces of simi¬ 
lar character, three plays drawn from the treas¬ 
ury of old Norse history, “King Sverre,” “Sig¬ 
urd Slembe,” and “Sigurd Jorsalfer”; a dramatic 
setting of the story of “Mary Stuart in Scot¬ 
land”; a social comedy entitled “The Newly 
Married Couple,” which last was perhaps the 
precurser of his later preoccupation with themes 
of modern life. His only long poem, “Arnljot 
Gelline,” is a wild marrative depicting the clash 
between heathenism and Christianity in the days 
of Olaf the Holy; and last, but by no means 
least, comes the collection of his “Poems and 
Songs.” 

At the age of forty Bjornson had more than 
a dozen books to his credit, all written with a 
definite purpose of arousing his countrymen to 
a fuller consciousness of their own nature rooted 
in the heroic past. Thus in the very prime of 
life he stood as the creator of a literature of his 
people for the first time distinctly their own. 


48 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


In 1877, he published his “Magnhild,” a story 
dealing with the conventional morality. Then 
followed “Captain Mansana,” in 1879, “Dust,” in 
1882, “The Flags Are Flying in City and Har¬ 
bor,” built upon the dual themes of heredity and 
education. “In God’s Way,” published in 1889, 
we have doubtless the book by which Bjornson 
is best known in this country. It is an epitome 
of all the ideas and feelings that have gone to 
the making of the author’s individualism and 
which have received such varied expression in 
his works. It teaches sweetness and righteous¬ 
ness as the true aim of religion rather than dog¬ 
matism and subserviance to outward form. 
“New Tales,” a collection of which “Absalom’s 
Hair” is the most important, followed in 1894, 
and “Mary,” in 1896. 

The achievement represented by this list is 
all the more remarkable when it is considered 
that during the thirty-five years covered in the 
writing of these plays, poems and novels, their 
author was, both as a public speaker and writer 
in the current press an active participant in the 
political and social life of his country. 

Bjornson was twice theatrical manager, from 
1857 to 1859 in Bergen and from 1865 to 1867 
in Christiania, the latter position being gotten 
for him by his famous contemporary, Ole Bull. 
Second only to Ibsen as a dramatist, he laid the 
foundation for the Norwegian stage. Among 
his best known plays are “Sigurd Slembe,” a 
trilogy published in 1862, of which mention has 
already been made; “The Editor,” treating of 
the degeneration of modern journalism, in 1874; 
and “Bankruptcy,” published in 1875, the sub- 






















BJoRNSTJERNE BJoRN SON 


51 


ject matter of which is a financial panic. This 
last was accorded an ovation not only in Nor¬ 
way but in all civilized countries. 

The publication of “The King,” in 1877, an 
attack on the institution of royalty, brought 
upon him the denunciation of the elite. His 
residence was stoned and he was threatened 
with imprisonment. In the sight of the royalists 
he had outraged both throne and altar. The 
truth is that his h2nd had fallen with such 
weight upon the assumed prerogatives of the 
privileged classes as to shake their citadel to its 
foundation. He was told that he had ceased to 
be a poet and had become an agitator. “Oh, 
yes; don’t I know it!” he replied. “If you are 
to be a poet you must not mingle in the harsh 
and jarring tumult of this world. There is a 
prevalent idea that a poet is a long-haired man, 
sitting on the top of a tower and playing upon 
a harp while his hair is streaming in the wind. 
A fine kind of a poet that is! No, my boy, I am 
a poet not primarily because I write verse;—there 
are many who can do that, but by virtue of see¬ 
ing more clearly, and feeling more deeply, and 
speaking more truly than the majority of men. 
All that concerns humanity concerns me. If 
by my songs or my speech I can contribute ever 
so little towards the amelioration of the lot of 
the millions of my poorer fellow creatures, I 
shall be more proud of that than of the com¬ 
bined laurels of Shakespeare, Milton and 
Goethe.” 

As an orator Bjornson was the greatest that 
Norway has produced. Never was he more him¬ 
self than when on the public rostrum. His 


52 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


speech was like a torrent, every word and phrase 
was full of concentrated thought and meaning. 
His invective had something of the force of an 
avalanche, sweeping all before it. 

The director of theatres, the editor of news¬ 
papers and contributor to many others, the pro¬ 
moter of schools and patriotic organizations, the 
participant in many political campaigns, the lay 
preacher of public and private morals, the chosen 
orator of his nation for all great occasions,— 
these are some of the characters in which Bjorn- 
son must be viewed to form anything like a com¬ 
plete conception of his unique personality. It 
is perhaps true that he has influenced as many 
people by the living word as he has by the print¬ 
ed page, not only in his own land but in for¬ 
eign countries as well. His magnificent physique, 
his powerful voice, enabled him to address with 
distinctness and force audiences numbering as 
high as twenty thousand at a time. 

Besides frequent visits to Denmark, Sweden, 
and Finland, the poet made many lengthy so¬ 
journs in the chief centers of civilization, in 
Munic, Rome, and Paris. The longest of his 
foreign journeys was that which brought him 
to the United States in the winter of 1880-81, 
for the purpose of addressing his fellow country¬ 
men in the Northwest, where, at Minneapolis, 
the writer of this sketch, while scarcely in his 
'‘teens,” had the pleasure and satisfaction of 
hearing him speak. 

Like many men who have risen to great fame, 
Bjornson was fortunate in the possession of a 
good wife. She had not alone culture of mind 
and beauty of person, but what is of more 


BJORNSTJERNE BJoRNSON 


53 


worth to a man,—she had faith in her husband 
and was a real helpmate. She read his manu¬ 
scripts and with the intuition of her sex made 
many valuable suggestions for their improve¬ 
ment. She was industrious, economical and am¬ 
bitious. Her heart was at rest in him, and the 
home she made for him was ever a haven of 
refuge and comfort from all the storms and 
vicissitudes of his intensely active career. How 
much a man owes to the benign influence of a 
good woman may not appear on the surface, for 
the modesty of her nature often makes her shun 
the blare of public acclaim, but graven on the 
heart of every man whose life has been similarly 
blessed is the deep conviction that without that 
vital prop he never could have withstood the 
surges of life’s tumultuous sea. 

Bjornson was an innovator, an iconoclast. He 
disdained the authority of men and schools; he 
violated the unities and cared nothing for the 
models of the ancient world. A giant mentally 
as well as physically he threw all his immense 
energy into whatever engaged his attention for 
the time. From his Viking ancestors he in¬ 
herited his stubborn characteristics and love of 
freedom. About the year 900 a troop of these 
Vikings, these “Wolves of the Sea,” sallied up 
the Seine in their staunch ships. The people on 
the shore called to them: “Where are you from 
and who are your masters?” The defiant an¬ 
swer rang back over the waters: “We are from 
the round world and we call no man our mas¬ 
ter!” Bjornson would have made the same 
reply. 


54 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


tiful estate of Aulestad in the Gausdal, a region 
of Southern Norway. Here he carried on the 
vocation of a gentleman farmer, and here, sur¬ 
rounded by his family,—wife, children and grand¬ 
children—he spent the declining days of his life. 
Hither came streams of admirers and friends, 
both old and new, and enjoyed his generous hos¬ 
pitality. Neither was the stranger turned away 
—even though he came from a foreign land, but, 
on the contrary, was often greeted with the sight 
of his own country’s flag waving its welcome to 
the master’s abode. 

For several of his latest years it had been the 
custom of the poet to spend the winter months 
in Paris, where the climate was more conducive 
to the comfort and health of one who had passed 
the allotted three-score years and ten. And it 
was here, in this historic city, in the midst of 
its ceaseless hum of vibrant life, that on April 
26, 1910, at the very season when his mind 
doubtless pictured with hopeful longing the 
return of the spring-time among the valleys and 
fjords of his native land, and when in the beau¬ 
tiful woodlands of France the birds so sweetly 
herald the approach of smiling summer, that 
the great, warm, loving heart ceased to beat. 

The news of his demise occasioned demonstra¬ 
tions of grief not only in his own country^ but 
throughout the civilized world. A warship was 
dispatched to bear his body to Christiania, and 
the King and Storthing of Norway decreed for 
his obsequies every mark of respect decreed for 
that a nation can bestow upon her illustrious 
dead. 


BJoRNSTJERNE BJoRNSON 


55 


Some day, I know, I shall safely be, 
Over the lofty mountains; 

Maybe Thy gate is ajar for me? 

Father, thy home will be good to see; 

But keep the gate closed a while longer, 
Till my soul by trial is stronger? 





56 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


Hans Christian Andersen 


Ill these days of turmoil and strife, when the 
stress of class domination and greed for gain bid 
fair to thwart the higher and nobler purposes 
of tranquil minds, it is refreshing—nay, it is 
inspiring, to turn for a little while to the reverse 
of the unseemly spectacle and commune with 
the life and works of one whose advent into the 
world has cast a ray of sunshine into countless 
hearts and homes. It is inspiring, also, to note 
how a true, benignant character such as the 
subject of our sketch may, notwithstanding the 
circumstance of lowly birth, of pinching poverty 
and delicate health, win his way to the highest 
pinnacle of honor and fame in his chosen field 
and leave to posterity a legacy and a name more 
enduring than pillars of bronze or tablets of 
graven stone. 

Hans Christian Andersen, the “Children’s 
Poet,” was born at Odense, Denmark, April 2nd, 
1805. His father was a poor cobbler, his mother 
a woman of the plain and frugal peasant stock. 
The family occupied a single room which also 
served as a shoemaker’s shop; the garden was 
reached by a ladder leading to the roof where 
the mother grew vegetables in a wooden box 
filled with earth. The furniture was home-made, 
the bedstead being constructed of boards taken 
from a discarded catafalque of a recently de¬ 
ceased nobleman, the shreds of sabel cloth which 




HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN 





























HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN 


59 


still adhered in places serving as a cogent re¬ 
minder of the solemn event. 

But the father, although poor in purse, was 
rich in appreciation of good literature and over 
his work-bench were stored in a cupboard a 
small but choice collection of books, among 
them the “Arabian Tales” and works of Hol- 
berg and other noted authors of the period, and 
he frequently took his little son out into the 
woods and hills and spoke to him of the won¬ 
ders and beauties of nature; and the mother, 
though of limited secular knowledge, was pos¬ 
sessed of a strong, simple Christian faith which, 
by example rather than preachment, she instilled 
in the heart of the susceptible boy whereby he 
acquired a profound reverence and an abiding 
trust in Divine beneficence which not only 
bore him up through his early trials but casts 
a radiance over all his works. A striking illus¬ 
tration of this abiding faith occurred one day 
while he was playing in the fields to which his 
mother had gone to harvest. A certain under¬ 
sheriff, who was more of a bully than a bailiff, 
bore suddenly down upon the gleaners with a 
huge whip in his hands, whereupon all the 
women ran away, including little Hans, but the 
latter having on wooden shoes and these being 
cast in his rapid flight he was soon overtaken on 
account of the wounding of his feet by the newly 
cut stubble. The ruffian grasped him firmly by 
the collar and raised his whip to strike the 
shrinking lad, whereupon the boy looked up in 
the face of his captor and with voice shaking 
with emotion said: “How dare you strike me 
when God can see it!” The fellow instantly 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


lowered his whip, and (wonders to relate!) not 
only released his victim but gently patted him 
on the head and gave him a piece of money! 

The father died when our poet was still in 
his childhood; the mother went out to wash and 
the boy was left alone with his toys and books. 
At the house of a clergyman he became ac- 
quainted with Shakespeare’s works and from 
these and passages in the Bible he constructed 
a rude tragedy—his first attempt in literature, 
which he named “Abor and Elvira.” This he 
read in part to whoever would listen but re¬ 
ceived only ridicule and jeers. The boy went 
trembling to his mother. “She only laughed,” 
said the indulgent woman, referring to a certain 
old lady who had been especially bitter in her 
criticism, “because her own son had not done so 
well.” Ah, mother! it is to you that many a 
struggling boy owes whatever of noble trait and 
character his life has shown. A noted crone of 
the neighborhood had read in the grounds of 
her coffee-cup that the boy through many trials 
would eventually become a great man and that 
his native town would some, day be illuminated 
in his honor, and whether by reason of this 
glowing prophecy or the subtle instinct of her 
sex, the mother managed to save from her hard- 
earned pittance at the wash-tub sufficient money 
wherewith to send him—though not without an 
aching heart, foi it left her all alone and was 
the only treasure she possessed—to Copenhagen, 
the beautiful city of his dreams. 

Young Hans arrived in the Danish capital 
with only ten dollars in his pocket—a spare strip 
of a boy, a total stranger to the world—a mere 


HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN 


61 


chip on the crest of a troubled sea; but he had 
confidence, for did he not carry a letter of intro¬ 
duction to Madame Schall, the famous danseuse, 
which a journeyman printer in Odense had 
given him—although, forsooth, the aforesaid 
printer had no acquaintance with the lady! Be¬ 
fore he raised the knocker of her door he fell 
upon his knees and prayed that he might here 
find help and encouragement. A pretty domestic 
appeared with a market-basket on her arm, 
looked complacently at the kneeling boy and 
gave him a “skilling,” much to his surprise and 
chagrin, for he thought his Sunday-clothes 
would prevent his being taken for a beggar. 
Admitted to the presence of the danseuse he 
explained his errand, his longing for the stage, 
handed her the letter of the printer and asking 
her permission to remove his boots began to 
dance and sing a part from the play of “Cin¬ 
derella,” using his hat for a tambourine. The 
astonished lady thought him out of his mind 
and made haste to rid herself of his presence. 
Nothing daunted he sought the manager of the 
theatre, but was told to go away, that he was 
too young, and they engaged only persons of 
education. 

Deeply wounded but not entirely discouraged, 
he wept bitterly but said: “When everything 
happens quite miserably then He sends help. I 
have always read so. People must first suffer 
a great deal before they can bring anything to 
accomplishment.” He bought a ticket for the 
play. It was “Paul and Virginia.” Here he 
wept. A market-woman near told him not to 
take it so much to heart, that it was only a play, 


62 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


and gave him a piece of her sausage sandwich. 
He told her he was not weeping at the parting 
of Paul and Virginia but the stage was “his 
Virginia” and that he was parting from “it”, 
whereupon the good woman gave him another 
piece of her sandwich. 

The next morning he paid his bill at the hotel 
and found to his dismay that the remainder of 
his wealth consisted of a single dollar. He must 
now either write home for help or find some¬ 
thing to do that would sustain life. He chose 
the latter course—there was metal in this boy! 
Want of space forbids the tracing of his many 
attempts and vicissitudes in trying to gain a 
footing for a livelihood, suffice it to say that in 
a bedraggled and starving condition he knocked 
one day at the door of the noted Siboni, director 
of the Academy of Music, who happened at the 
very moment to have a party of distinguished 
guests at dinner, among them the celebrated 
composer Weyse and the poet Baggesen. The 
housekeeper opened the door and to her he 
related not only his desire for an interview 
with the director but the details of his struggles 
to gain an entrance to the stage, and ofifered to 
sing for her then and there to prove his fitness 
for the opera. She listened with sympathy to 
the outpouring of this boy’s soul to her and 
retired to the company within to whom she 
repeated the wistful story. They all came for¬ 
ward to the doorway and led the frightened boy 
into the spacious parlor, for here was indeed an 
unexpected diversion—a piece of drama from real 
life! He was left in the middle of the room 
and told to do his best to entertain the merry 






















HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN 


65 


company. With flushed face and throbbing 
pulse the boy launched forth with a song from 
Holberg, recited a favorite poem, and then, the 
sense of his unhappy situation contrasting with 
the luxury and contentment about him, he burst 
into a flood of tears whilst his auditors applauded 
with enthusiasm this unexpected exhibition of 
genuine emotion. 

The poet Baggesen, quick to discern the qual¬ 
ity of budding genius, said: “I prophesy that 
one day something will come out of this young 
man, if the world does not spoil him by sullying 
his pure, true nature.” Siboni promised to cul¬ 
tivate his voice so as to take him into the chorus 
at the Royal Theatre, and Professor Weyse told 
him to come and see him the next day. The boy 
was led out of the essembly. How he spent the 
interim is not known, but the next day when 
he called upon Weyse he was told that the com¬ 
pany of the previous night had raised the sum 
of seventy dollars wherewith to assist him in 
beginning his career. The reader will bear in 
mind that these were the days when those in 
higher places considered it a duty and a privi¬ 
lege to help aspiring youth whenever it was 
thought that such assistance would tend to the 
promotion of the arts or redound to the glory 
of the fatherland. 

Hans now wrote his mother for the first time 
since his departure. It was a letter full of hope 
and promise. The mother’s heart bounded with 
joy and she ran about the neighborhood reading 
its contents to the astonished gossips, most of 
whom had predicted the early collapse of the 
dreams of her aspiring prodigy. Fancy a moth- 


66 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


er’s joy and secret pride at such an opportunity! 
But the struggles of our young enthusiast were 
not yet over, albeit gaunt hunger no longer 
stalked his path. For two years he labored on, 
often living upon one meal a day; it was soon 
discovered that the lyric stage was not for him, 
that his bent was literature of the gentler kind, 
but all his writings were rejected; he lacked 
education and literary style, the critics said. By 
sheer force of attrition—the constant dropping 
that wears away the stone, he drew the attention 
of men who could and did help him to secure 
an education. These were Collin, director of 
the Royal Theatre, and no less a person than 
the Danish sovereign, Frederick VI, to whom 
the former appealed on behalf of the budding 
poet. He was granted a small stipend to en¬ 
able him to attend the grammar school at Sla- 
gelse, twelve Danish miles from Copenhagen. 
From here he was removed to the grammar 
school at Helsingor. It was while attending this 
latter school that he wrote his celebrated poem, 
“The Dying Child/’ the first of his writing to 
gain attention and favorable acknowledgement, 
and, we might add, one of the most beautiful 
lyrics to be found in the Danish language. And 
yet he was chided by several foolish and thought¬ 
less persons for venturing to write on such a 
theme at this early advent into the realm of 
letters. His rector took him severely to task, 
pronounced the poem a piece of driveling senti¬ 
mentality and idle trash. But Collin, learning of 
this outrageous conduct of the crusty pedagogue, 
immediately had his protege removed from his 
school. On the boy taking his leave the rector 


HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN 


67 


cursed the unoffending lad, told him he would 
never amount to anything, that his verses would 
grow mouldy on the floor of the book-seller’s 
shop and that he would end his days in the mad¬ 
house. This rector is long since gone and for¬ 
gotten, but “The Dying Child” is today, as it 
has been from the day it was written, a thing 
of such transcendent charm tfiat it shines forth 
from the page as a scintillating star, stirring 
the soul to the depths in its tender appreciation 
of the beautiful innocence of childhood. 

From this point the path of the poet began to 
brighten, but being of very limited means he 
took lodgings in a garret from which soon issued 
from his pen the exquisite little work “A Pic¬ 
ture Book Without Pictures.” It met with an 
instant response. Then came the touching story 
reflecting his own struggles, “Only a Fiddler.” 
Next followed the gayly colored arabesque, “A 
Journey on Foot from the Flolm Canal to the 
East Point of Amack.” No publisher could be 
found to take it, so he brought it out himself. 
The sketch ran through three editions in short 
order. The King increased his stipend so as to 
enable him to travel through Europe and the 
Orient, for his literary labors brought him but 
a meagre return at this time. In the course of 
his travels he became personally acquainted with 
many of the world’s most illustrious men and 
women of the period but cherished most the 
friendship of Charles Dickens, the English nov¬ 
elist; Mendelssohn, the German composer; Jenny 
Lind, the Swedish Nightingale; Bjornstjerne 
Bjornson, the Norwegian poet and author; and 
Thorvaldsen, the Danish sculptor. 


68 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


The sudden death of his beloved mother oc¬ 
curred while he was in Rome, too soon, alas, 
to enable the poet to bestow upon her those 
special comforts which a little later would have 
been her share in his altered fortune, but he 
had frequently visited her and from abroad came 
to her tidings of his ascending star. “Thank 
God,” said the weeping poet when his old friend 
Collin wrote him of the sad event, “her days 
of poverty are over, and she died in the belief 
that I had become famous.” That belief was 
well founded, for soon all Europe was to ring 
with praise for the gentle spirit that in the midst 
of stress and strain had come to remind the 
world of the intimate thoughts of its children. 

His novel, “The Improvisitore,” and that de¬ 
lightfully descriptive narrative, “The Poet’s Ba¬ 
zaar,” were the fruits of his travels in foreign 
lands, to which should be added his graphic 
story, “In Spain,” which practically concluded 
his writings of the more pretentious kind, al¬ 
though he wrote several dramas, some of which 
were produced with success, notably “The Mu¬ 
latto,” and “Mer end Perler og Guld,” which 
ran one hundred nights in Copenhagen. But 
he “found himself,” to borrow a current phrase, 
when he began writing stories for children, 
those indefinable, subtle imageries from wonder¬ 
land, with their invariably pointed moral which 
has made his name known in every land where 
spoken language has found its way in print. 
Plere are some of the vanguard of the grotesque, 
the picturesque and heart-engrossing tales: Ole 
Lukoi (Shut-eye), The Tin Soldier, The Ugly 
Duckling, The Little Match-Girl, The Shadow, 


HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN 


69 


Holger Danske, The Red Shoes, The Snow- 
Man, the Tinder Box, The Princess on the Pea, 
and Elise and the Wild Swans. 

His style in writing these tales was unique: 
“Listen, children, now you shall hear!” “A 
soldier came marching along the great high¬ 
way, one-two, one-two.” “They put him in the 
dark, dark cell—there he sat!” “Now we will 
begin at the beginning, and when we are through 
we shall know much more than we do now.” 
“ T do not thank you for that/ said the stork- 
mother to the storkfather, 'but you are the head 
of the house, and I have nothing to say—except 
at hatching-time.” 

He never married, poverty preventing an early 
attachment until he became wedded solely to 
his art. 

From persons of high rank in various parts of 
the world there were bestowed upon the poet 
many tokens of personal esteem as well as in¬ 
signias of special honor, among them the Order 
of the Red Eagle from the King of Prussia, and 
the title of State Councilor from Christian VIII 
of Denmark; but of all his distinctions the one 
valued most was the celebration which took 
place at Odense on December 4th, 1869, where 
at last the prophecy of the soothsayer was to 
be fully realized and where he beheld with feel¬ 
ings of mingled pride, joy and pathos the illum¬ 
ination of his native city in his honor. 

In 1872 he wrote the last of his wonder-stories. 
Shortly thereafter he met with an accident at 
Innebruck from which he never entirely recov¬ 
ered, but his declining years were spent in com¬ 
fort, thanks to the income from his works and 


70 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


the kind ministrations of troops of friends. So 
great was the concern and sympathy excited by 
his physical misfortune among the children, 
especially those of the United States, that under 
the mistaken belief that he was in need of finan¬ 
cial aid a considerable sum was collected for his 
benefit, which later took the form of purchase 
of a fine addition to his library. His last years 
were lived in peace and contentment at his 
beautiful villa, “Rulighed,” surrounded by all 
the enjoyments that money and loving kindness 
can bestow, where, after a brief and painless 
illness, he passed away on August 1st, 1875. A 
statue had already been erected to his honor, and 
he was buried under the auspices of the Danish 
government with ceremonies and a solemnity 
befitting the funeral of a king, as indeed he was, 
not as temporal ruler, to be sure, but as mon¬ 
arch of a realm greater and more magnificent 
than any other—the enduring kingdom of the 
heart, which finds its best expression from im¬ 
pulse of its childhood, for “men are only boys 
grown tall, hearts don’t change much after all.” 














































































































































. 






' 






























GEORGE WASHINGTON 






GEORGE WASHINGTON 


73 


George Washington 


The influence of a single character upon the 
destiny of a nation was never more clearly 
shown than in the advent of Washington. He 
stands out in history as an example of self- 
abnegation, sterling integrity and heroic virtue 
unsurpassed in the annals of mankind. Born 
in the purple of aristocracy, schooled in the sys¬ 
tem of royalty and distinction, and surrounded 
by the material comforts of wealth, he became 
by choice a friend of the poor and oppressed, 
a champion of a new civl economy and a par¬ 
taker of the sorrows and privations of a people 
struggling to be free. He who might have spent 
his life in ease upon his inherited estates, pur¬ 
chasing immunity from service if need be, he 
whose opportunity and situation might have led 
him to prefer the placid life of a country gentle¬ 
man waxing rich on the labors of his fellowmen, 
called by his heart as well as by his country, 
girded on his sword, bade farewell to his bride, 
to his beautiful home, to a life of luxury and 
contentment and for the best portion of his allot¬ 
ted years, years of danger, of sacrifice, of toil, 
of bitter contention and strife, battled, labored 
and suffered for pure love of justice and the 
great principle of human liberty. 

It has become the fashion of some biographers 



74 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


in later years to cast doubt upon the alleged 
precocity of Washington as a youth, by point 
ing out the lack of foundation in fact for the 
stories told of his childhood days, notably the 
one about the cherry tree and the hatchet, but 
this as well as other stories, like many tales 
of those who rise to fame, are true in the sense 
that they illustrate in simple language the pre¬ 
dominant trait of his character—that of index¬ 
ible honesty and candor. You may destroy the 
literal frame of these stories, if you will, but 
you cannot obliterate their purport as long as 
the life they were meant to body forth tallies 
with their inner meaning. They are the early 
index of a child that was indeed father to the 
man and spell the promise of future greatness 
as unerringly as the bend of the twig forecasts 
the growth and vigor of the tree. 

As a boy Washington showed unmistakable 
signs of leadership and matured faster in both 
mind and body than is the case of the average 
child. He grew tall, straight and muscular, 
fond of contests of endurance and skill, of sport 
and adventure. He early showed a love of learn¬ 
ing, of discipline of the mind and of symmetry 
and order in the everyday conduct of life. He 
chose the art of field surveying from his fond¬ 
ness of nature and her intricate forms so 
admirably squaring with the law of being. The 
menace of the frontier by the Indians brought 
out his spirit of resentment toward the infringe¬ 
ment of established laws. In 1751, at the age 
of nineteen years, he was appointed adjutant 
general in the organizing and equipping of the 
militia of Virginia. Later he was sent, in the 


GEORGE WASHINGTON 


75 


midst of a rigorous winter on an important mis¬ 
sion far into the interior, in the effort to nego¬ 
tiate a peace with the French and their Indian 
allies who claimed a large section of the Ohio 
valley as their exclusive trading* and hunting 
ground. In the command and forwarding* of this 
expedition his behavior marked him as a young 
man of exceptional qualities. Again, in a sub¬ 
sequent expedition of a more aggressive na¬ 
ture, he received his first baptism of fire and won 
his first military victory as well as the approba¬ 
tion of his superiors for his skill, courage, sa¬ 
gacity and endurance. His management of the 
retreating remnants of Braddock’s illfated cam¬ 
paign displayed an important element in his 
nature not hitherto brought forth—that of for¬ 
titude and steadiness in time of extreme ad¬ 
versity. 

When the ominous clouds of the Revolution 
hovered he sought the vanguard of those who 
staked their “lives, their fortunes and their sa¬ 
cred honor” on the outcome of the Declaration 
of Independence. By a spontaneous choice of 
the people of the united colonies he was ap¬ 
pointed commander of the revolutionary forces, 
and for eight long years he battled bravely on, 
often with an ill-fed, half-clothed and underpaid 
army of raw recruits, with treachery and in¬ 
trigue stalking his path and malice and calumny 
snapping* at his heels, in the face of superior, 
well trained and equipped veterans, retreating to 
avoid complete disaster and so adroitly slipping 
away from the carefully laid plans and traps of 
adepts in arms as to earn for him the sobriquet 
of “The sly old fox.” Like a skillful athlete who 


76 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


awaits the psychologic moment while his pow¬ 
erful adversary wastes his strength in blunt 
exertions of weight and force, he bided his time, 
husbanded his energies, stood fast upon the 
principle that right must win and that a just 
cause will always find defenders, and when the 
opportune moment had arrived, when as if in an¬ 
swer to his secret prayers in the snow-covered 
thickets of Valley Forge succor came with the 
help of that noble chevalier the Marquis de La¬ 
fayette and his valient soldiery from the land 
of Louis the XVI, thereby offsetting the mer¬ 
cenaries of Hess and Brunswick, he turned about 
as a tiger turns at bay and struck a blow that 
resounded and still resounds throughout the 
world for the glory of the greatest nation it has 
ever seen, when Cornwallis capitulated and the 
flag with the thirteen bars took the place of the 
Union Jack on the fame-circled field at 
Yorktown. 

Someone has said that Washington had not 
the power of eloquence and lacked the springs 
of intimate affection. But this must be entirely 
untrue. There is in the strict enforcement of 
well-directed discipline a greater regard for the 
good of others than was ever wasted in loose- 
formed methods or temporary expedients based 
an transient demands. There is in the straight¬ 
forward utterances of a candid mind that sees 
the ultimate benefit from present sacrifice, of 
standing firm by the immutable laws of justice, 
an eloquence and warmth of heart with which 
no impulsive action or flambuoyant appeal of 
studied rhetoric can compare. When in the bit¬ 
ter disappointment of seeming defeat, with the 


GEORGE WASHINGTON 


77 


pangs of hunger and the. longing for home and 
fireside, for wife and children, goaded his troops 
toward the verge of a despicable revolt, he ap¬ 
peared before them with a written address pre¬ 
pared in the vigils of the night which he started 
to read to them, but finding by the dimness of 
the light and his failing sight that he could not 
read it, he fumbled for a moment for his glasses 
with the unstudied remark, as eloquent as it 
was significant, that he had not only grown grey 
but blind in their service. It was enough, and 
although he read his speech it was unnecessary 
after that first freighted and pathetic sentence. 
His men crowded forward to take his hand, the 
air rang with the shouts of “Long; live Wash¬ 
ington,” and all thought of revolt was over. 

Following the victory at Yorktown the war 
came to an end and after surrendering his 
commission and receiving the thanks of Con¬ 
gress and a grateful people, he turned with % 
sigh of relief toward that mecca of his hopes 
and dreams, old Mount Vernon, to rest, as he 
was fond of expressing it, under his “own vine 
and fig tree.” The cares and hardships of many 
campaigns had made him old beyond his years 
and he longed to live the remainder of his days 
in peace, removed from the turmoil of public 
life. But only a little while elapsed before he 
was called by unanimous choice to fill the office 
of the first president of the new Republic, al¬ 
though, as he wrote to Lafayette, it had no fas¬ 
cinating allurements for him. He returned to 
official life not from choice but from devotion 
to his country which demanded his services as 
an act of duty, and again he stipulated that 


78 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


under no circumstances would he receive pay 
for such service. He came to the presidential 
chair at a time when the conflicting claims of 
the colonies in the adjustment of their expendi¬ 
tures for the war and their fears and jealousies 
lest one district should gain some advantage 
over the other, made his labors arduous in the 
extreme. In the strictness of his administration 
and insistence upon what he believed was right 
and just, he was accused of wanting to set him¬ 
self up as dictator and even as a monarch. This 
last pierced him like a knife-thrust and at a 
cabinet meeting he gave vent to his temper—• 
a rare occurrence, although high-spirited by na¬ 
ture—by bringing his fist down upon the table 
before him and exclaiming with flashing eyes 
that so far from wanting to become king was he 

that he might be d-d if he wouldn’t rather 

return to private life than become emperor of 
the world! 

Though he neither sought nor desired a sec¬ 
ond term as president he was prevailed upon 
to accept it on the score of critical situation 
in which the young nation found itself—and he 
the only one upon whom the people could or 
would implicitly rely, and so, though his health 
was failing and his vision of retirement and rest 
was again to be dissipated, he took up the task 
and for four more years gave his richest service 
to the land he loved so well. At the end of his 
second term a clamor arose for his continuance 
in office, but he resolutely declined, not only 
for reasons personal to himself but to prevent 
a precedent of continuance in office inimical to 
the maintenance of a republic. The country had 






* 







GEORGE WASHINGTON 


81 


now arrived at a point where he felt, also, that 
his services were no longer needed, that other 
younger and perhaps abler men were at hand 
to take his place, that considerations he owed 
to his family demanded that he should have to 
himself the few remaining years that were left 
to him in which to live. 

His farewell address is America’s greatest 
civic classic. Tt is the corner-stone of that un¬ 
written law of moral duty graven on the hearts 
of the American people which time can never 
efface. The fatherly affection it shows, the 
solicitude it expresses, the dangers it points out, 
the benediction it bestows, are his legacy to the 
people he loved and the land for which he gave 
the ripest and best years of his life. No one 
familiar with the life of Washington can read 
it without deep emotion, no lover of liberty, of 
honesty, of sacrifice for the good of others, of 
patriotism that knows no selfish motive, should 
be without it so that he might turn to it time 
and again for inspiration, for strength, for cour¬ 
age and conviction in the time of his country’s 
need. 

In closing this humble tribute, let us listen to 
his parting Avords : “Though in viewing the 
incidents of my administration, I am uncon¬ 
scious of intentional error, I am nevertheless too 
sensible of my defects not to think it probable 
that I may have committed many errors. What¬ 
ever • they may be, I fervently beseech the Al¬ 
mighty to avert or mitigate the evils to which- 
they may tend. I shall also carry with -me the 
hope that my country will never cease to view 
them with indulgence and that after forty-five 


82 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


years of life dedicated to its service, with an 
upright zeal, the faults of incompetent abilities 
will be consigned to oblivion, as myself must 
soon be to the mansion of rest. Relying on its 
kindness in this as in other things, and actuated 
by that fervent love towards it, which is so nat¬ 
ural to a man, who views in it the native soil 
of himself and his progenitors for several gen¬ 
erations; I anticipate with pleasing expectation 
that retreat, in which I promise myself to real¬ 
ize, without alloy, the sweet enjoyment of par¬ 
taking, in the midst of my fellow citizens, the 
benign influence of good laws under a free 
Government,—the ever favorite object of my 
heart, and the happy reward, as I trust, of our 
mutual cares, labors and dangers.” 

Washington died, as he had lived, a brave and 
generous man, in his sixty-seventh year, at his 
Mount Vernon home, after a brief illness caused 
by an attack from a severe cold. His breathing 
was labored and painful but he bore it with¬ 
out complaint, saying he knew his time had 
come, but that he was not afraid to die. His 
sole concern was for the welfare of those whom 
he was leaving behind, for his beloved wife and 
others who had long been the recipients of his 
bounty and paternal care. When he had assured 
himself that his affairs were in proper order 
he sank back upon his pillow requesting the 
weeping group about him not to grieve, saying 
that he was merely paying a debt which we 
all must pay. Noting that his secretary took 
pains frequently to turn him in his bed in 
order to relieve his suffering, he said to him: “I 
am afraid I fatigue you too much,” whereupon 


GEORGE WASHINGTON 


83 


being assured to the contrary, he replied, “Well, 
it is a duty we owe to each other and I hope 
when you want aid of this kind you will 
find it.” 

And thus, patiently, resignedly, as noble a 
spirit as ever graced humanity, as ever labored 
for its cause, as ever raised and bore aloft the 
standard of an independent race, a banner whose 
shimmering folds greet the light of a civilization 
the greatest and best the world has ever known 
—passed to the mystic shores from which it 
came, leaving a memory that will forever pul¬ 
sate in the hearts of the living in the tender 
appellation—“The Father of his Country,” and 
the glorious tribute, “First in War, First in 
Peace, and First in the Hearts of his Fellow- 
citizens. 



S4 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


Carl Linne 


Among the illustrious names adorning that 
great branch of natural history known as Bot¬ 
any, there is one to which was affixed the dis¬ 
tinguishing title “King of the Flowers”; and 
that name is Linne. 

Carl Linne, or as Latinized, Linnaeus, was 
born at Rashult, Smaland, in the south of Swe¬ 
den, May 23, 1707. His father, Nils Linne, was 
a clergyman who, besides preaching, made a 
practical study of plants and flowers, and his 
frequent reference to these as well as his propa¬ 
gation of them about the premises of the parson¬ 
age early impressed the young Carl with an ex¬ 
traordinary interest in plant life. At the tender 
age of four we find him making a garden of his 
own in the corner of his father’s yard. 

Determined, however, to make a clergyman of 
their boy the parents in due time sent him to 
the Latin School at Wexio, where he remained 
eight years, but his real study days were when, 
in vacation, he tramped the thirty miles to his 
own home, stopping frequently on the way to 
renew acquaintances with his old friends, the 
trees, the birds and the flowers. His thoughts 
were on the great outdoors, and his school stud¬ 
ies lagged to such an extent that his teachers 
finally dubbed him a dunce and recommended 




CARL. LINNe 


















. 
























































CARL LINNE 


87 


to the father that he put him to learning a trade, 
for, said they, “a clergyman he will never be.” 

But there was one who differed with the 
learned professors at Wexio, a noted physi¬ 
cian, Dr. Rothman, who informed the father 
that young Linne would, if properly encouraged, 
make a first-rate physician, and offered to take 
him to his home as a student. 

The mother, whose father and grandfather 
had both been clergymen, was greatly disap¬ 
pointed, laying it all to the garden which the 
child had been permitted to cultivate; and when 
his younger brother showed an inclination to 
carry it on she admonished him significantly, 
“Don’t you dare to touch it!” 

After spending some time with Dr. Rothman 
Carl was sent to the university at Lund armed 
with a letter to the Latin Master wherein the 
good doctor extolled in somewhat equivocal 
language the virtues of his gifted protege. Here 
he found lodgings with Dr. Stobceus, a famous 
medical savant but a perfect hypochondriac 
owing to advancing age and infirmities. Here, 
however, he found a friend in the person of 
a fellow student close in the confidence of the 
old physician, and, who, in exchange for Carl’s 
help in solving the mysteries of the ‘‘materia 
medica” brought him the doctor’s books on 
botany, for Carl, in spite of his studies and 
labors in the medical science, was still hope¬ 
lessly in love—with flowers. Nothing could 
estrange him from these, his first enchantresses. 
He was, as the poet has sung: 


8S 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


‘‘Like a vase in which roses have once been 
distilled; 

You may break, you may shatter the vase if 
you will, 

But the scent of the roses will cling to it still.” 

While at Lund, on one of his surreptitious 
wanderings in search of floral specimens, he 
nearly lost his life from the poisonous sting of 
an adder. Some years later, in his natural his¬ 
tory, he retaliated on the venomous creature by 
naming it “furia infernalis.” 

On a visit to his parents at Stenbrohult he 
made a catalogue of the plants in his father’s 
garden, comprising two hundred and twenty- 
four varieties,—a fact that indicates both the 
skill of the son and the no mean botanical incli¬ 
nation of the father. Among the list we find 
the potato (Solanaceas Tuberorum), which w r as 
then, in 1730, cultivated as a rare plant, until 
some twenty years thereafter, when it began to 
be grown for food. 

Greatly encouraged by the now evident genius 
of their son, his parents opened their meager 
purse and sent him to the great University of 
Upsala, but it was all they had, he was told, 
and he must thenceforth shift for himself. Here, 
although making remarkable progress in his 
studies, he came near to starving as his little 
stipend dwindled away, was often forced to de¬ 
pend upon chance for a meal and to wear the 
cast-off clothes of his fellow students. He was 
now in his twenty-third year, an age when the 
attractions of worldly pleasures are usually the 
hardest to withstand; yet he clung to his flowers 


CARL LINNe 


89 


as though he might devour their beauty with 
his eyes and glean a shred of sustenance from 
their soothing fragrance. 

But the reward that conies from long and 
earnest endeavor, from sincere and constant 
effort, the desire that sacrifices every considera¬ 
tion at whatever cost to one unbending pur¬ 
pose, came to this struggling boy as it has come 
to many others fired with a similar devotion to 
a great ideal. He was sitting one day in the 
botanical gardens of Upsala sketching a plant, 
when Dean Celsius, the great orientalist and 
theologian, passed his way, noticed his evident 
poverty, inquired into his situation and ended 
by engaging him to classify and arrange a large 
collection of botanical specimens the Dean had 
gathered in the Holy Land. “That day Lin¬ 
naeus left his attic room and went to live in 
the Dean’s house. His days of starvation 
were over.” 

We next find him lecturing in the Botanical 
Gardens where the students came in great num¬ 
bers to hear him. Later, through the influence 
of his benefactor, he traveled over Lapland in 
search of its singular flora, and writing of his 
wandering journey of over three thousand miles 
as fascinating an account of scientific explora¬ 
tion as was ever penned, embodied in his “Flora 
of Lapland.” He next led an expedition into 
the Dalecarlia mountains where, at Falun, he 
met Baron Reuterholm, Sweden’s copper mag¬ 
nate. Here he started a school of mineralogy, 
introducing both science and system into a busi¬ 
ness which theretofore had been a wasteful 
process of “hit and miss.” And here he met 


90 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


and fell in love with the beautiful daughter of 
Dr. John Moraeus and was promised the hand 
of his adored if in three years he should prove 
his ability to support a wife. And Elizabeth— 
for that was her name—promised to wait for 
him; not only so, but she gave him her savings 
of one hundred dollars, to help him speed the 
nuptial day; she was of the old-fashioned kind! 

With his scant treasury thus augmented he 
posted off to Hardewyk, Holland, plunged into 
the study of medicine and secured his doctor’s 
degree, but in the bottom of his portmanteau 
he carried the manuscripts of two books on 
botany and at Leyden he found friends who 
brought out his initial effort,—“Sy sterna Na¬ 
turae,” in which for the first time is set forth a 
scientific division of the animal, vegetable and 
mineral kingdoms. It laid the foundation for 
his fame. Zoologists to the present day point 
to the tenth edition of this work as the basis 
of their profession. 

Notwithstanding the attacks and criticisms 
that now assailed him from students of the older 
school, treatise upon treatise followed his first 
venture in rapid succession until after writing 
seven volumes—a whole botanical library, he 
turned homeward to his beloved Sweden and to 
the sweetheart who was still waiting, although 
four long years had passed since their betrothal. 
But the marriage was not yet to be, said the 
stern Dr. Moragus, for the prospective bride¬ 
groom had not acquired the stipulated where¬ 
withal, and so all the young lovers could do was 
to renew their plighted troth, and with a pur¬ 
pose thus sustained he turned to that Eldorado 



















CARL LINNe 


93 


of Sweden’s youth, the splendid city of Stock¬ 
holm, there to resort to the practice of medicine 
in order to secure a more certain livelihood, and 
—to wait. Curiously enough, however, this very 
profession of medicine helped, in an unlooked- 
for way, the progress of his botanical career. 
The Queen having a stubborn cough heard one 
day from a maid in waiting that Dr. Linneseus’ 
prescription for a cold had cured her quickly of 
a similar ailment. The Queen sent for him 
and as a result he rapidly acquired a lucrative 
practice by reason of being known as the 
Queen’s physician. Being now able to produce 
sufficient credentials he went to claim his bride 
and on June 26, 1739, married his constant Eliza¬ 
beth and returned with her to the great city 
where fortune had so unexpectedly favored him. 
Yet he was not entirely happy, for his favor¬ 
ite study had been neglected, sacrificed, as it 
were, upon the altar of Mammon. “Once I had 
flowers and no money,” he said, “now I have 
money and no flowers.” 

But his fame as a physician had now reached 
the ears of the directors of the great univer¬ 
sity, and we next find him filling the chair of 
Professor of Medicine at Upsala, a position he 
soon exchanged, however, with the famous Dr. 
Rosen for that of Biology, and so, at last, 
reached the goal of his ambition, holding the 
exalted position for thirty-seven years! 

As a practical method in his course of teach¬ 
ing he frequently made excursions on foot out 
into the country accompanied by a large class 
of students. It presents one of the most pleas¬ 
ing and picturesque episodes of his life to read 


94 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


of the trimphal return of the party at evening, 
garlanded with flowers, heralding its approach 
to the city with shouts of joy and flourish of 
trumpets, reminding one of the famous vintage 
festivals of ancient times. 

“What the lines of longitude and latitude did 
for geography Linnaeus’ genius did for botany.” 
He conceived and carried out the grand idea 
of reform in botanical method and nomencla¬ 
ture. His binominal system revolutionized, and 
from chaos brought order into, the beautiful 
study of nature. During this period he wrote 
his “Bibleotheca Botanica,” his “Classes Plan- 
tarum,” and his “Critica Botanica,” and, after 
a close examination of the characters of eight 
thousand flowers, brought out his crowning 
work, “Genera Plantarum,” upon which event he 
adopted the motto: “Tantus amor florum” (So 
great is the love of flowers). The King made 
him a Knight of the Polar Star, an honor never 
before conferred for literary merit. Being made 
a noble he adorned his crest with the “Linnea 
borealis,” the little pink-belled flower he dis¬ 
covered in the days of his poverty, struggling 
amid the moss and stunted spruce of northern 
Lapland. 

Now he was known as Carl “von” Linne. His 
fame grew apace. The students at Upsala in¬ 
creased from five hundred to fifteen hundred, 
and they came from the four corners of the 
earth. During the time of his greatest activities 
he was the most conspicuous figure in the world 
of science. 

Although not fitted for the clergy, Carl Linne 
was a pious man. Over the door of his lecture 




CARL LINNE 


95 


room he had inscribed in Latin “Live Guiltless, 
God sees you,” and perceiving the dawn of the 
day of bacteriology he thanked God for “per¬ 
mitting him a glimpse into His wondrous work 
shop.” 

At the age of seventy a stroke of apoplexy 
nearly laid him low. “Linnaeus limps,” he said 
laconically, “can hardly walk and is scarce able 
to write.” These are among the last notes in 
his diary. A year later, on January 10, 1778, 
his gentle soul winged its way to the land of 
eternal blooms. 

The nation and all the scientific world were 
deeply moved by the passing of so splendid a 
character, and the King (Gustavus III) in a 
speech from the throne lamented in eloquent 
terms the great loss that Sweden had sustained 
in the death of her beloved countryman. 

Near the old Upsala Cathedral in which he 
lies buried, with his wife—the same steadfast 
Elizabeth, stands a monument of dark porphyry, 
with the plain smooth-shaven face in bronze, 
bearing the inscription: “Carlo a Linne. Bo- 
tanicorum Principi Amici et Discipuli, 1798.” 

Of Linne’s six children, the eldest daughter 
inherited much of her father’s genius, being the 
first to discover the luminous property of the 
nasturtium flowers at night. 


HENRIK IBSEN 



HENRIK IBSEN 


97 


Henrik Ibsen 


The subject of our sketch has been the theme 
of critics, many of whom content themselves 
with praising what is palpably good and con¬ 
demning what to them seems unintelligible, 
while at the same time conceding, as they must, 
that Henrik Ibsen was one of the greatest dram¬ 
atists of the nineteenth century. But to one 
whose aim is not so much to analyze as to ex¬ 
tract the metal from the matrix and who essays 
the task from the standpoint of kinship to an 
allied race, Henrik Ibsen and his work are the 
natural product of a seeming design of the Crea¬ 
tor to enrich the world at intervals with minds 
that make for the advancement of mankind in 
ah the branches of useful knowledge. 

At the very threshold of our narrative we 
behold a picture as old as recorded history—a 
child of the common people, in obscure sur¬ 
roundings, hedged in by poverty and all the 
untoward circumstances that seem to wait upon 
the cradle, youth and early manhood oi all the 
torchbearers and pathfinders of the world. Hen¬ 
rik Ibsen (baptized Henrik Johan) was born 
in Skien, Norway, March 20, 1828. His father, 
Knud Ibsen, was a native-born merchant; the 
mother was of German descent. His ancestors 
on the male side were Scotch and Danish, the 
latter being the nationality of his great-grand¬ 
father, Peter Ibsen, a sea-captain from Moen. 



98 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


His grandfather, who also followed the sea, was 
wrecked off Hesnass, near Grimstad, on the 
southeast coast of Norway, and there lost his 
life with all on board. 

The family residence at Skien was in a house 
facing the town pillory, a church, the lock-up, 
the grammar school, and an asylum for the in¬ 
sane, all within ear-shot of the ceaseless droning 
of waterfalls cut through by the sharp screech¬ 
ing of saws at work in the adjacent mills. When 
the boy was eight years of age his father failed 
in business and betook himself with his fam¬ 
ily to the only remnant of his worldly posses¬ 
sions—an old farm homestead called “Venstob,” 
in the outskirts of Skien. Young Henrik was 
sent to school with the other children (there 
were four), where he received the rudiments of 
a common school education, including a little 
Latin and some theology, all without any special 
indication of the future remarkable development 
of his intellect. He was gloomy, brooding and 
withal a rather ungainly youth—a sort of “ugly 
duckling.” 

At the age of fifteen, his father’s affairs being 
in even a worse condition than before, he was 
taken from school and apprenticed to an apothe¬ 
cary at Grimstad, a grim little town off whose 
rugged coast his grandfather was drowned. In 
this small, isolated, brooding corner of the 
world, unconnected except by steamer, looking 
out into the east wind over a dark bay dotted 
with unnamed rocks, for six long years lived and 
drudged one of the greatest imaginations that 
Europe had produced for a century. 

But the young pharmacist, while brewing 




HENRIK IBSEN 


99 


boneset in the little low-roofed apothecary shop, 
was also boning over some musty tomes which 
he had brought with him, among them an old 
Norse family Bible and “Harrison’s History of 
London” in English, which he could not read, 
but, as he makes one of his characters say in 
“Brand,” it was an interesting book because “it 
was left behind by an old sea-captain who was 
drowned; it must be a hundred years old, and 
there are such heaps of pictures in it; at the 
beginning there is Death with an hour-glass and 
a woman.” 

During these grey, formative years he has 
been described as rude, truculent and contra¬ 
dictory, even “spectral,” which characterizations 
later took the more dignified form of “pessimist,” 
“iconoclast” and “hypochondriac”; but to the 
writer he appears as one of the most subtle 
satiric-humorists of his time, using for his pur¬ 
pose materials hitherto considered incapable of 
yielding aught but the most unsalutary product. 

In this lost cranny, with its little coterie of the 
“exclusive set” which finds its way even, in the 
remotest nestlings of society, he began to indict 
carricatures and pungent epigrams of certain 
pompous individuals of the locality which nat¬ 
urally excited the wrath of the victims just in 
proportion as it engendered the hilarity of the 
supposedly less favored class. Unfortunately 
these quibs have become lost, otherwise we 
might here exhibit the very chick of Ibsen’s men¬ 
tal development. But these sallies* were not 
the only early earmarks of his literary genius, 
for when the day’s work in the shop was over 
we find him creeping to his garret and by the 


100 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


flicker of his tallow-light venting his pent en¬ 
thusiasm for the world of letters in the con¬ 
struction of a drama based on the historic con¬ 
spiracy of Cataline, to which he gave the more 
correct title of “Catalina.” This labor he varied 
by composing numerous lyrics, such as “By 
the Sea,” “Doubt and Hope,” “The Sources of 
Memory,” “Autumn,” and “Ball-room Memo¬ 
ries,” the latter occasioned by the action of a 
young lady who unbeknown to the aspiring poet 
had become infatuated with him and who sud¬ 
denly appeared with a posy of flowers which she 
threw full in his face—an incident which, 
although it nearly turned his head at the time, 
came ultimately to nothing further. 

His poverty at this period was extreme, com¬ 
pelling him to forego such ordinary comforts 
as an overcoat or even stockings—and this all 
through the rigorous seasons of the Norwegian 
winter. Nevertheless, he suffered no permanent 
inconvenience thereby. Between labors on his 
drama and occasional writing of verses he endeav¬ 
ored to prepare himself for entrance to the Uni¬ 
versity at Christiania. In this effort he was en¬ 
couraged by two friends, one of whom, Ole 
Schulerud, possessed means enough to take his 
drama to the capital and have it published, al¬ 
though it never reached the foot-lights', and in 
literary form was confined to a circulation of 
thirty copies, the rest being utilized as wrapping- 
paper by an obliging grocer nearby. But one of 
his poems had been published in a Christiania 
paper and suiting his action to the voice within 
him which cried out “I Must, I Must,” as does 
the opening sentence of his “Catalina,” he put 



HENRIK IBSEN 


101 


into his pocket the few dollars he had managed 
to save and in March, 1850, at the age of twenty- 
one, set his face toward Christiania, the mecca 
of his hopes and visions of success. 

Here in the thriving metropolis of Norway, 
with his friend Schulerud, he lived the life of a 
student and when his little surplus ran out was 
forced to depend upon his young friend for 
life’s necessities, and although the latter’s in¬ 
come was “scarcely enough for one and starva¬ 
tion for two,” they managed to get along in 
their praparations for the University, to which, 
however, Ibsen never succeeded, principally on 
account of his deficiency in Latin. In the mean¬ 
time, to eke out their meagre store of funds, he 
wrote prose and verse for sundry fugitive jour¬ 
nals for whatever he could get, and finally pro¬ 
cured the production of a play—his second at¬ 
tempt in drama, called “The Warrior’s Tomb,” 
at the Theatre, where it ran for three nights. 
But although he strove assiduously to promote 
the little advantage gained in the reception of 
this work, all his efforts were doomed to failure 
and the year 1851 began gloomily enough. 

It was at this juncture that he met the famous 
violinist, Ole Bull, through whose influence he 
secured a position as director and dramatic edi¬ 
tor at the newly inaugurated National Theatre 
at Bergen. The salary was less than $350 a 
year with a small extra allowance for traveling 
to secure actors and ideas, especially in Copen¬ 
hagen, which in those days was like going to 
Athens for the cultivation of classic-histrionic 
art, for Heiberg was then the manager of the 
Royal Theatre at the famous old Danish city, 


102 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


lending his great talent in the production of not 
only his own work but in the illumination of 
the dramatic masterpieces of the world. 

Although Ibsen’s connection with the Theatre 
at Bergen came to nothing, his association with 
the great Danish playright became and perhaps 
remained the alpha and omega of what he learned 
of the technique of his art—a fundamental requi¬ 
site to his chosen calling. And here, in Ber¬ 
gen, he met, wooed and won the heart and hand 
of Miss Susannah Thoresen, whose father was 
a man of culture and whose step-mother was 
before her marriage the famous Anna Maria 
Kragh, a Dane by birth and for a long time, 
with the possible exception of Camilla Collett, 
Wergeland’s sister, the most active woman of 
letters in Norway. His courtship of Susannah 
was interspersed with the writing of his first 
play of note—-“The Vikings at Helgeland,” 
which may account in some degree for the spir¬ 
ited tenor of the piece. He had gained a sweet¬ 
heart that was to be to him the very staff and 
comfort of his life, and notwithstanding his 
involved financial condition at this period he 
married her on June 26, 1856. Up to this time 
the only substantial return from his writings 
was the sum of $125 which he received for “The 
Warriors.” 

But again there came assistance in the person 
of his great contemporary and fellow country¬ 
man, the poet Bjornstjerne Bjornson, whose in¬ 
fluence and effort procured for him the appoint¬ 
ment of director of the Norwegian Theatre, the 
second playhouse of Christiania. About this 
time Ibsen conceived and put on paper the most 


HENRIK IBSEN 


103 


finished of all his productions thus far—a psy¬ 
chologic tragedy called “The Pretenders,” al¬ 
though it was not completed for the stage until 
several years had elapsed. In 1860 the Storthing 
denied his application for a grant such as was 
the custom to give to men of letters in that day, 
the refusal being largely due to his satirical 
writings. Still his friends stood by him. Jonas 
Lie, then editing a newspaper in Christiania, paid 
him $175 for his “Love’s Comedy” which the 
theatres had refused to put on but which Lie 
ran as a supplement in his paper. In 1882 the 
second theatre went bankrupt and Ibsen was 
thrown on the world, the most unpopular man 
of the day and heavily burdened with debts. 
His only salvage was an engagement at the 
Christiania Theatre at a salary of five dollars a 
week—hardly enough to sustain the life of one, 
let alone the added maintenance of a wife aud 
child. Nevertheless, he still had friends who 
helped him with the bare necessities, earning 
thereby a gratitude which lasted throughout 
his life. 

Despairing of getting assistance from the 
Storthing, Ibsen now applied directly to the 
King, with the result that there was granted 
him a stipend of $450 a year, and in April, 1864, 
he took the step which he had long contem¬ 
plated and quitted his native land, from which 
he was destined to remain away—in body, 
though not in spirit—for twenty-seven years. 
He entered Copenhagen at the dark hour when 
Schleswig and Holstein had been abandoned 
and when the citadel of Dybbol alone stood 
guard against the overwhelming of Denmark by 


104 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


an invading foe; a fortnight later he set out for 
Rome, where he had determined to reside. “Here 
at last,” he wrote Bjornson, “is blessed peace,” 
and settled himself down to the pursuit of his 
life’s vocation. 

Ibsen was now thirty-seven years old and 
still practically unknown as a writer of the 
first class, but, contrary to precedent, it was the 
ripe year of his awakening. For some time he 
seemed stupefied by the abrupt change from the 
climate of his northern home to the semi-trop¬ 
ical skies of Italy. His wife and little son, 
Sigurd, joined him in October, and here all 
three lived on an income of less than $40 per 
month! Still it was not so hard to go hungry 
in Rome as in the strenuous region of the 
Northland. 

But the turn in the tide was at hand, for forth 
from his trenchant pen issued his first master¬ 
piece—‘“Brand,” a drama which grips the soul’s 
citadel in a storm of conflicting emotions. Four 
large editions were exhausted in the first year 
of its publication, from which time it continued, 
and still continues, to be published. Now the 
Storthing of Norway increased his stipend, and 
his struggle for existence was over. The re¬ 
ward almost immediately succeeding was that 
incomparable drama “Peer Gynt,” with its root 
in the peasant life of modern Norway. None of 
the delays that had hitherto attended the pro¬ 
duction of his work fell to the lot of this later 
effort which was published in Copenhagen in 
November, 1867. Some critics declared that it 
did not conform to the rules of poetic art, where¬ 
upon Ibsen promptly replied, “Then the rules 





s 












































HENRIK IBSEN 


107 


must be altered ; my book is poetry, and if it is 
not, then it shall be. The conception of what 
poetry is shall be made to fit my b6ok.” He 
was now about forty years of age, from which 
time he may be said to have entered upon his 
career as a dramatist of the first class with a 
future practically secure. 

The next product of his busy brain was a 
five-act comedy called “The League of Youth.” 
written in 1868 in a little village of the Salz¬ 
burg Alps. In October we find him at Dresden, 
which became his home for a number of years. 
In 1869 he paid a visit to Stockholm, where he 
was royally entertained for two months, receiv¬ 
ing from King Karl the decoration of the Order 
of Vasa, and renewed his acquaintance with 
the Swedish poet, Karl Snoilsky, which ripened 
into a life-long friendship. While at Stockholm 
he received an invitation from the Khedive of 
Egypt to be the latter’s guest with other notable 
men in the celebration of the opening of the 
Suez Canal. His presence at Port Said and in 
the interior of the land of the Pharoahs is one 
of the episodes of his life. 

Among the men of note to whom he was 
drawn at this time was the great Danish critic, 
Georg Brandes, who had written several articles 
in praise of Ibsen’s work. In 1870 the war 
between Germany and France coming on apace 
he quitted Saxony and settled for several months 
in Copenhagen, where he renewed his friendship 
for the poet Hans Christian Andersen, around 
whose neck he had thrown his arms at a meet¬ 
ing in Germany some years before. And yet 
some have said Ibsen’s was not an affectionate 


10S 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


nature! After the fall of Strasburg and Metz 
he returned to Dresden and turning his back 
on the vexatious themes of war set about col¬ 
lecting his poems which he published in 1871. 
In the spring of 1875 he removed definitely to 
Munich, after a brief visit to Christiania which, 
however, did not remove his estrangement from 
the land of his birth. His gigantic task, “Em¬ 
peror and Galilean,” was the product of his 
labors during this period and taught him the 
danger of living too long away from the in¬ 
fluences which formed the basis of his work. 
It also marks the end of the poetic style in his 
dramas which were thenceforth written in prose. 

In 1877 appeared “The Pillars of Society,’'’ 
which was acted simultaneously in Sweden, 
Norway, Denmark and Germany. An estrange¬ 
ment between our dramatist and Bjornson, en¬ 
gendered by the political upheaval in Norway, 
was broken in 1880 when the latter, while in the 
United States, said of Ibsen: “I think I have 
pretty thorough acquaintance with the dramatic 
literature of the world, and I have not the slight¬ 
est hesitation in saying that Henrik Ibsen pos¬ 
sesses more dramatic power than any other play- 
writer of our day.” To this Ibsen responded: 
“The only man in Norway who has frankly, 
boldly and generously taken my part is Bjorn¬ 
son. It is just like him; he has, in truth, a 
great, kindly soul, and I shall never forget what 
he has done now.” In 1878 we find him again 
in Rome, and being now a man of means he 
became somewhat of a connoisseur, going about 
the art galleries and shops in search of artistic 
treasures. In the summer of 1879 we find him 



HENRIK IBSEN 


109 


in a suburban Italian village penning what 
proved to be the most famous of all his plays,— 
“A Doll’s House.” It was an unqualified suc¬ 
cess, acting with such intensity on the social 
life of Scandinavia as to account in a large de¬ 
gree for the propaganda looking to the political 
emancipation of women in this portion of the 
world, for the great statement—“No man sac¬ 
rifices his honor, even for one he loves,” and the 
reply,—“Hundreds of thousands of women have 
done so,” aroused discussion such as no other 
social question had done in many generations. 

Ibsen loved to sport with accepted precepts 
of society, and in answer to the cry of the lib¬ 
erals that “the majority is always right,” he re¬ 
plied, “You are mistaken, the minority is always 
right,” and proceeded to demonstrate the novel 
proposition. He hated politics “because,” as 
he said, “of its demoralizing effects.” In sup¬ 
port of his contention that character depends 
upon heredity and environment he wrote the 
play of “Ghosts,” which excited the ire espe¬ 
cially of the German savants who had laid 
such stress on the beneficial effects of education. 
These attacks pleased him immensely, in fact, 
judging from his letters, he would have been dis¬ 
appointed had they not been made. His play, 
“The Enemy of the People,” was evidently 
written for the express purpose of attempting 
to prove that selfishness is the predominant fac¬ 
tor in human nature, and that, “right” must 
give way when interest is concerned. He did 
not believe that this ought to be so, but con¬ 
tended that it was so as society is now organ¬ 
ized. In 1884 appeared his sardonic comedy, 


110 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


“The Wild Duck,” in which it is apparent the 
great dramatist is trying to tell his audience not 
to take him too seriously, for the topsy-turvy 
nature of the theme made Ibsen as nearly “rol¬ 
licking” as it is possible to conceive him to 
have become. 

In June, 1885, he returned again.to Christiania 
and was almost persuaded to remain on account 
of the honors heaped upon him by his country¬ 
men, but the political situation was not to his 
liking and he was glad to get away from “the 
intrigues and counter-intrigues” so repugnant 
to his nature. Both sides, the liberals and con¬ 
servatives, claimed him, yet he would have none 
of either. But all this gave him the cue for his 
new play “Rosmersholm,” which was followed 
by “The Lady from the Sea,” the latter written 
in 1887 at the little town of Saeby, Jutland, with 
the sands of the ocean in front and the rolling 
woodland behind. 

Our dramatist was now in his sixtieth yeai 
and had reached the point where he was pro¬ 
claimed the greatest dramatist of his age. Even 
in Germany his fame was greater than that of 
any other native writer of the same class. The 
same might be said as to Italy, France, Russia 
and England, the people of which had to content 
themselves' by seeing his work in translation. 
His play “Hedda Gabler,” written at Munich in 
1890, was read almost simultaneously in Lon¬ 
don, New York, St. Petersburg, Leipsig, Ber¬ 
lin, Moscow, Copenhagen, Stockholm and Chris¬ 
tiania. He sometimes was called upon to super¬ 
intend the performance of his own plays, notably 
at Vienna, where, after the performance of his 



HENRIK IBSEN 


111 


“Pretenders/’ he was given a perfect ovation at 
a banquet held in his honor. 

In the summer of 1891, having demonstrated 
to the world that he was in truth an artist of 
the first rank, and having convinced himself, as 
he wrote to Bjornson, that he “must come home 
again, after all,”* he returned to his native land 
and, with the exception of short trips to Copen¬ 
hagen, spent the remainder of his days among 
his own people. His reception‘at home lasted 
nearly a year, being a sort of celebration on an 
extended scale of the “return of the prodigal 
son.” In 1892 appeared the first play he had 
written in his own land since his rise as dra¬ 
matist, entitled “The Master Builder,” a work 
that shows Ibsen abreast with his time, as it 
is mainly predicated upon the theory of telepathy 
or “thought transference.” But he was now 
growing old, also waxing rich, being regarded 
as one of the wealthiest private citizens of Chris¬ 
tiania. Nevertheless, three more plays were to 
issue from his pen, namely, “Little Eyolf,” in 
1894; “John Gabriel Borkman,” in 1896; and 
“When We Dead Awaken,” the latter, by its 
title, implying his belief in the completion of 
his work. 

On his seventieth birthday Ibsen received the 
felicitations of the world, including g-oups of 
admirers from England, among them Mr. As¬ 
quith and the dramatist, Bernard Shaw. A depu- 

*In a poem written in Italy Ibsen says: 

“From the land of sunshine and flowers, 

Every night in the silent hours, 

A homeless rider hied him forth 
Towards the huts of the snowy North.” 


112 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


tation of the Storthing, representatives of the 
Theatres, officials of academic bodies and lead¬ 
ing citizens generally called upon him at inter¬ 
vals during the day. Among other gifts was a 
costly set of silver from English admirers. On 
September 1st, 1899, the new National Theatre 
at Christiania was opened by the King, when 
colossal bronz statues of Ibsen and Bjornson 
placed in front of the entrance were unveiled. 
The first night a play by Holberg was given, at 
which both attended, each seated in a golden 
chair near the proceneum, but the second night 
was solely Ibsen's and his admirable play, “An 
Enemy of the People,” was then produced. At 
the close of each act he was called to the front 
of his box, and at the end the audience rose en 
masse and shouted itself hoarse with “Long 
Live Ibsen.” It was with great difficulty he 
was enabled to leave the building, a way being 
pushed for him by a squad of police reaching 
far into the street. This astonishing night, Sep¬ 
tember 2nd, 1899, was the close and fitting cli¬ 
max of a career as wonderful as it was unique. 

Henrik Ibsen was a man of exceptional qual¬ 
ities. He liked to say bitter things, but he said 
them in a gentle way. He seldom wasted words, 
and remained tranquil under the most distressing 
circumstances. He liked public gatherings, as 
a spectator, not as a participant. He was sim¬ 
plicity personified, yet he was rarely confidential ; 
his heart, in truth, was a fenced city. He had 
friends but he did not cultivate them. He was 
the enemy of anything that approached cant and 
pretension. When he read it was generally 
poetry. He had no ear for music and his effort 



HENRIK IBSEN 


113 


to appreciate Edvard Grieg’s beautiful harmon¬ 
ization of ‘'Peer Gynt” was almost pathetic, but 
the sound of poetic rhythm gave him acute 
pleasure. His affection for his wife was marked 
and her devotion to him was almost sublime. 
Time and again as his strength was failing and 
he received her constant care he would look up 
into her face and say: “Min sode, kjaere, snille 
frue” (My sweet, dear, good wife); and she 
taught to adore their grandfather the three chil¬ 
dren of a new generation, fruits of the union of 
his son Sigurd and one of Bjornson’s lovely 
daughters. 

As he approached his seventy-ninth year he 
became very feeble but was able to walk about 
in his rooms almost to the last. He would go to 
the window now and then, gaze into the sky, and 
■ murmur in German, “Keine Sonne, Keine 
Sonne.” At the same table where nearly all 
his works had been written he sat persistently 
again learning the alphabet. “Look!” he would 
say, pointing to a number of crabbed characters 
on a sheet of paper before him, “See what I a'm 
doing! I am sitting here and learning my let¬ 
ters—my letters! I, who they say, was once a 
writer!” 

The master spirit was indeed departing and 
lingered only as a shadow of its former self, but 
the vigorous constitution, an inheritance from 
his northern home, let slip life’s halliard only by 
degrees, until finally, almost imperceptibly, on 
May 23rd, 1906, at half past two in the after¬ 
noon, in his beautiful home on Drammensvej, 
directly opposite the royal gardens of Chris¬ 
tiania, a man who by his genius had made the 


114 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


little town of Skien share the glories of Strat- 
ford-on-the-Avon, passed to the great and mystic 
world beyond. 

His funeral was a public function, at which 
the King of Norway and his suite attended, 
and Edward VII was present in the person of 
his Minister. And so, the poet who had suf¬ 
fered such bitter humiliation in his youth and 
such hardships and trying disappointments in 
so many of his manhood’s years, was carried to 
his final resting place amid the bowed heads 
of the peers of nations and with all the recog¬ 
nition of his worth and labors that it was pos¬ 
sible for his people to bestow. 


















































































































■ ■ : 



























































BERTEL THORVALDSEN 





BERTEL THORVALDSEN 


117 


Bertel Thorvaldsen 


“Clay is Life, Plaster is Death, and Marble is 
the Resurrection.” Thus spoke the subject of 
our sketch when summing up the relative mer¬ 
its of the different materials of his art. The 
expression shows him to have possessed the 
poetic instinct essential to success in his chosen 
calling, and which so distinctly characterizes all 
his works. But he had also other traits quite as 
important and necessary to enable one to pre¬ 
vail against the certain obstacles and opposition 
of calculating greed and envious mediocrity,— 
self-confidence, determination, and pugnacity. 
This is illustrated by his retort when a would-be 
competitor had boastfully set himself up as 
superior to the great master, whereupon the 
latter accosted the heel-snapping underling and 
with all the spirit of his Viking blood shaking 
his frame, cried: “You, a sculptor! Why, you 
may bind my hands behind me and I will bite 
the marble out with my teeth better than you 
can carve it!” 

Bertel Thorvaldsen, sorhetimes called Albert 
(in Italian, Alberto) Thorvaldsen, one of the 
greatest sculptors that the world has produced, 
was born at sea under the Danish flag while 
his mother was on her way to Copenhagen, the 
“Paris of the North,” on November 19, 1770. The 
father, Gottskalk Thoravldsen, was a poor sailor 
who became a carver of figure-heads for ships. 



118 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


hailing from Iceland by reason of which this 
thriving island province of Denmark claims the 
great artist, his son, as her own, and at Reikia- 
vik has erected a statue to his memory. The 
mother was Karen Gronlund, the daughter of a 
Jutland clergyman. 

As the father had determined that his son 
should follow, the trade of carving wooden im¬ 
ages for the beak-heads of vessels, in which he 
himself was engaged, and as the art of drawing 
is essential to real success in this vocation, Ber¬ 
tel was sent to the free school of the Danish 
Royal Academy of Arts while only eleven years 
of age. Two years later he entered his father’s 
carving-house at the dock-yard, where he not 
only greatly assisted his parent but soon sur¬ 
passed him in artistic conception and execution. 
He was returned to the Academy and spent 
several years at intervals in perfecting his stud¬ 
ies, and at the age of seventeen gained one of 
the Academy’s smaller medals for a bas-relief 
representing “Cupid Reposing.” The Dean after 
this called him “Monsieur,” a prefix which the 
artist afterwards declared sounded sweeter to 
him at the time than any title that a king could 
bestow. 

The young genius, by reason of the poverty 
of his parents, was compelled to divide his time 
between the Academy and his father’s shop, 
until at the age of twenty-one he was awarded 
the small gold medal in a contest for the best 
sketch of the subject “Heliodorus Driven Out 
of the Temple.” Count Ditlew de Reventlow, 
Minister of State, saw the young artist’s work 
and started a subscription with his own name 


BERTEL THORVALDSEN 


119 


at the top. that enabled young Thorvaldsen to 
devote all his time to his favorite study. Two 
years later he competed for and won the large 
gold medal of the Academy, which carried with 
it the right to a three years’ traveling “stipen- 
dium,” but before entering upon his journey it 
was deemed necessary that he should have more 
schooling in the various branches of secular edu¬ 
cation which his close adherence to the study 
of art had denied him. In this he received the 
encouragement and support of the directors of 
the Academy. 

In March, 1797, we find him in Rome under 
his three-years’ traveling stipend, studying sculp¬ 
ture in the very home of the art, under the gui¬ 
dance of the then somewhat celebrated Danish 
savant and archgeologist, Zoega, who, however, 
would not admit in his protege any greater tal¬ 
ent than that of a “a servile imitator of the 
antique,” and who even discounted the enthus¬ 
iasm of the great Conova himself over the crea¬ 
tion of Thorvaldsen’s first masterpiece, “Jason,” 
of the Golden Fleece, by the tentative admis¬ 
sion that it was “rather bravely done.” 

This same Zoega shortly thereafter wrote to 
a friend concerning Thorvaldsen: “He is an 
excellent artist, with a great deal of taste and 
sentiment, but ignorant of everything outside of 
art. By the bye, the Academy shows very little 
judgment in sending such ignorant young fel¬ 
lows to Italy, where they must necessarily lose 
a great deal of time in acquiring that knowledge 
without which they are unable to profit by their 
stay here, and which could have been acquired 
more easily and rapidly before coming. Without 


120 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


knowing a word of Italian or French, without 
the slightest acquaintance with history and 
mythology, how is it possible for an artist to 
properly pursue his studies here? I do not re¬ 
quire him to be learned, but he should have 
some faint idea of the names and meanings of 
things he sees.” 

But it was now time, said Zoega, for Thor- 
voldsen to return home, and the latter reluc¬ 
tantly came to the same opinion, for his “sti¬ 
pend” had reached a point where it was barely 
sufficient to defray the cost of his journey back. 
Just as he was preparing for his departure the 
Danish songstress, Frederikke Brunn, who was 
then in Rome, presented him with a purse suffi¬ 
cient to enable him to have his clay model of 
“Jason” cast in plaster, and this, together with 
another delay awaiting the company of a young 
German sculptor who was returning to Berlin, 
and further assistance from his talented country¬ 
woman, who even went so far as to sing “Jason” 
at the theatre, resolved him to remain, and 
although he thereafter visited several of the cap¬ 
itals of Europe, including a short belated so¬ 
journ in Copenhagen, he did not return to per¬ 
manently reside in his native land until after 
a lapse of forty years. 

About the time of his determination to remain 
in Rome the English banker, Thomas Hope, 
came into his studio, was struck with the figure 
•of “Jason,” and asked how much it would cost 
in marble. Six hundred sequins (about $1800), 
said the sculptor, and the bargain was struck. 
This was the beginning of his good fortune. 


BERTEL THORVALDSEN 


121 


His genius as an artist, together with his in- 
dominable will and determination, eventually 
made him rich and independent. At Rome he 
kept his studio and his sumptuous bachelor 
apartments (for he never married) and was 
much besought and appreciated for his genial¬ 
ity and generosity. On the death of the noted 
Italian sculptor, Canova. Pope Leo XII nom¬ 
inated Thorvaldsen as the master’s successor, 
much to the chagrin of other aspirants for the 
honor and emoluments of the position. Even 
the fact that the Danish artist was a Protestant, 
and a rather indifferent one at that, was used to 
dissuade the Pope from his purpose, but that 
dignitary only answered: “Is there any doubt 
that Thorvaldsen is the greatest sculptor in 
Rome?” 

The friendship of Baron von Schubert, the 
Danish Ambassador at Rome, and of William 
von Humboldt, the Prussian Ambassador and 
creator of the science of Comparative Philology, 
introduced him to excellent society. In 1804 
he received from Florence the diploma of Pro¬ 
fessor in its Academy. In 1808 he was made an 
honorary member of the Roman Academy of 
Saint Luke. In 1816 he restored the Aegina 
marbles, a work which required a thorough 
knowledge of Greek Art, and which was ad¬ 
mirably executed. 

Among our sculptor’s distinguished friends of 
this period were Horace Vernet, the director of 
the French Academy in Rome, the German com¬ 
poser Felix Mendelssohn, and Sir Walter Scott, 
the English poet and author, of whom he mod¬ 
eled a bust. Mendelssohn used to keep a piano 


122 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


in Thorvaldsen’s studio, upon which he would 
play while the sculptor worked on his models. 
Fancy the inspiration each must have been to 
the other under such conditions! An incident 
illustrating the painstaking character of his 
genius is related by Hans Christian Andersen, 
the Danish poet, who, upon visiting Thorvald¬ 
sen to admire his model group representing 
“Christ Before Pilate,” was asked by the sculp¬ 
tor how he liked the figure of Pilate, whereupon 
the poet ventured to suggest that it might have 
been that Pilate, who was somewhat of a diplo¬ 
mat, was on the particular occasion presented 
dressed in the garb of a high magistrate rather 
than that of a Roman procurator. To this the 
sculptor immediately agreed, and stepping for¬ 
ward, with a sweep of his hand dumped the 
clay model of Pilate in a broken heap upon 
the floor. 

Our artist always retained specimens in 
plaster-casts of all his works, and these, to¬ 
gether with marble statues and bas-reliefs of 
his own not executed upon orders, and a num¬ 
ber of rich paintings that he every year bought 
from young artists, formed a treasure that he 
wished to house in a proper place in his native 
city of Copenhagen. In 1838, shortly before 
his return home, a frigate was dispatched to 
bring a cargo of his works to Copenhagen. His 
return was the signal for a festival of rejoicing; 
he was made a “Counselor of State” in order 
that he might dine with the King. He was, in 
short, received like a royal personage, the people 
fairly out-Daning the Danes to pay him homage. 
Baron Stampe opened for him his magnificent 








Thorvaldsen’s Museum at Copenhagen 











< 


BERTEL THORVALDSEN 


125 


castle of Nysoe, then the principal seat of the 
barony of Stampenborg, where the open strand, 
the beautiful beech woods and the little town 
seen through the orchards hard by, present an 
ideal picture of typical Danish scenery. Here 
he even increased his fame, which by this time 
had become universal, and here his last beautiful 
bas-reliefs were produced. The Cathedral (Frue 
Kirke) was the scene of his first and greatest 
labors after his return home. 

“All circles sought to do him homage,” said 
the poet Andersen, “he was at every festival, in 
every great society, and each evening found him 
in the theatre by the side of 0hlenschl8eger,” 
the poet “laureate” of Denmark. “His greatness 
was allied to a mildness, a straightforwardness, 
that in the highest degree fascinated the stranger 
who approached him for the first time. His 
atalier in Copenhagen was visited daily; he 
therefore felt himself more comfortable and un¬ 
disturbed at Nysoe. Baron Stampe and his fam¬ 
ily accompanied him to Italy in 1841, when he 
again visited that country. The whole jour¬ 
ney, which was by way of Berlin, Dresden, 
Frankfort, the Rhine towns, and Munich, was a 
continued triumphal procession.” 

Among the sculptor’s best known productions 
may be mentioned his bas-relief, “The Abduc¬ 
tion of Briseis,” the statues of Bacchus (the god 
of wine) and Adriadne (the Cretan princess who 
gave Theseus a skein of thread by means of 
which he found his way out of the labyrinth), 
ordered by Count von Moltke, and his famous 
“Cupid and Psyche” carved for the Countess von 
Ronzov. The government of the United States 


126 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


offered him ten thousand crowns for statues of 
“Liberty” and “Victory,” to be erected in the 
City of Washington, D. C., which, unfortunate¬ 
ly, he did not find time to execute. Napoleon’s 
visit to Rome in 1811 brought an order to carve 
a work of the sculptor’s own choice, provided 
his models were finished in three months. The 
result was a colossal frieze representing the 
“Entry of Alexander the Great into Babylon.” 
It remains one of the largest and most ambi¬ 
tious of Thorvaldsen’s works. The price paid 
was 320,000 francs. A replica in marble adorns 
the Palace of Christianborg in Denmark. The 
year 1815 brought out the famous bas-reliefs 
“The Workshop of Vulcan,” also “Achilles and 
Priam,” and two well-known medalions, “Morn¬ 
ing” and “Night,” which were reproduced a 
thousand-fold throughout the civilized world. 
Next followed the “Dancing Girl,” “Love Vic¬ 
torious,” “Ganemede and the Eagle,” and “A 
Young Shepherd with His Dog.” He also chis¬ 
eled from life a bust of Lord Byron, the famous 
English bard, for the library of Trinity College 
at Cambridge. 

At Warsaw he executed a bust of Emperor 
Alexander. At Munich he completed his monu¬ 
ment to Prince Eugene, an equestrian statue of 
the Elector Maximillian, and another model of 
“Adonis.” At Mainz he finished his model of 
Gutenburg, the inventor of printing, while for 
the city of Stuttgart he made a monument to 
Schiller. On his homeward journey he stopped 
at Lucerne, Switzerland, to carve his famous 
“Lion of Luzerne” into the solid rocks of the 
Alps, to commemorate the Swiss Guards who 


BERTEL THORVALDSEN 


127 


died in defense of the Tuileries in Paris on the 
10th of August, 1792. 

After a season of rest and enjoyment on his 
home-coming, Thorvaldsen began his great series 
of sculptural embellishments for the Cathedral 
at Copenhagen, comprising most notably the 
colossal “Christ and His Twelve Apostles,” and 
the beautiful “Baptismal Font,” a photographic 
copy of which forms our frontispiece, “Christ 
on the Road to Calvary,” “The Preaching of 
Saint John, the Baptist,” “Christ’s Entry Into 
Jerusalem,” and “The Lord’s Supper.” 

As a sculptor Thorvaldsen ranks among the 
foremost of his art. In the midst of innovation 
he returned to the classic traditions of the Hel¬ 
lenic school and thus bridged the chasm of two 
thousand years that had elapsed between antiq¬ 
uity and modern times. Art was to him a thing 
of ideal beauty; his nudes were always chaste. 
As opposed to the realism of the individualistic 
school, he preferred to body forth beauty in the 
abstract. His chisel produced only beauty. No 
demon or dragon or serpent was ever carved 
by him. His calm temperament and kindly 
soul saw only good in gods and men. Pain, 
misfortune, passion and suffering he could not 
represent. The triumph of love was his favor¬ 
ite theme. As time goes on his art has gath¬ 
ered about it an “atmosphere wherein may be 
discerned the artist and his age beneath the 
classical exterior.” In short, the art of Thor¬ 
valdsen is today, even perhaps more than at any 
former time, the true conception of plastic 
beauty. 


128 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


The collection of his complete works was 
donated to his native city and delivered by the 
artist in his lifetime. King Frederick VI gave 
the site for the building of a Museaum to con¬ 
tain them, the funds for which were raised to 
a considerable extent by popular subscriptions. 
A court-yard was left in the centre, under which 
a tomb was built that should contain his re¬ 
mains, for he had expressed a wish to be buried 
there, and he begged that there might be a low 
marble frame around the spot immediately above 
the tomb, visible from the galleries of the Mu¬ 
seum’s court, in which some foliage of vines and 
flowers might be planted, which was to consti¬ 
tute his monument. But the whole building, 
with its priceless treasures presented by him to 
his fatherland, will be his monument—is his 
monument today. It is in fact one of the prin¬ 
cipal places of attraction in Copenhagen and no 
visitor to the splendid capital—made still more 
beautiful through the influence and art of Thor¬ 
valdsen—neglects the opportunity to explore 
the magnificent art-mausoleum that bears his 
name. 

On the evening of March 24, 1884, after a 
pleasant visit with friends at the urban resi¬ 
dence of Baron von Stampe, the artist in appar¬ 
ently good health and spirits betook himself 
to the theatre, as had been his custom for many 
years, to witness the tragedy of “Griseldis,” 
although coined)', and particularly the comedies 
of Holberg, was more to his taste. As he reached 
the seat always reserved for him he shook hands 
with a few friends nearby and sat down. The 
orchestra began, to play. He was seen to rise in 


BERTEL THORVALDSEN I2d 

order to let some one pass him to a chair in 
the same row, after which he resumed his seat, 
bent his head slightly forward and remained 
motionless. The music continued. Those near 
him thought he had fainted and lifting him ten¬ 
derly they bore him into the open air and from 
thence to the Charlottenburg Palace, which ad¬ 
joins the theatre, where lie was laid upon a sofa. 
A physician hastened to open a vein, but no 
blood came,—the soul of the great master and 
genial companion had passed peacefully away. 

The announcement of his death produced a 
shock throughout the city; the poet Andersen 
went weeping through the streets, as did all vVho 
had known and loved the benign “carver of the 
beautiful.” The funeral accorded the famous 
sculptor, this son of a poor Icelandic sailor, was 
fit for the cortege of a sovereign, but the univer¬ 
sal grief produced by the realization of an irrep¬ 
arable loss was, after all, the greatest tribute 
that could be paid him. He was buried, as had 
been his wish, in the centre of the open court 
of the Museum, where he now lies under a bed 
of vines and flowers amid the rich collection of 
his masterful art. 



Thorvaldsen’s Grave 






130 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


Benjamin Franklin 


Cynics are wont to declare that a poor boy 
has no chance in this world. History teaches 
that the reverse of this is true. Few of the 
wealthy-born ever become great, for wealth is 
not a standard of greatness. As an incentive 
to effort poverty is a veritable boon. We have 
in recent months sketched the lives of half a 
score of the most famous men of the world, all 
of whom, with one exception, were children of 
the poor. 

And so, again we meet on the threshold of 
our present narrative a child of the common 
people, the youngest son of a tallow-chandler 
with seventeen children, quitting school at the 
age of ten and until twelve helping 'his father 
cut wicks and dip candles, then apprenticed to 
his elder brother in the printer’s trade, not alone 
because that seemed the boy’s bent but to make 
the urchin self-sustaining as speedily as possible. 

Benjamin Franklin, one of the grandest, if not 
the greatest, men of his time, was born in Bos¬ 
ton, Massachusetts, January 17 (New Style), in 
1706, a period when Queen Anne of England 
ruled over the ten colonies of America with a 
population of less than half a million souls, when 
pirates infested the coast, foxes pestered the 
farmers of Lynn, and panthers prowled in the 
forests of Connecticut. There were neither rail¬ 
roads, steamboats, stage coaches, telegraphs, 




BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 















BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 


133 


daily papers nor circulating libraries. Wild red- 
men were plentiful and were persecuted in com¬ 
mon with witches. The tiny city of New York 
was protected by a stockade; the largest town 
was Boston with a population of less than ten 
thousand and an area of about one square mile, 
boasting a weekly paper—the only newspaper 
in the entire country—with a circulation of scant 
three hundred copies. 

The family residence of the Franklins was a 
small frame dwelling on Milk Street just across 
the way from a wooden meeting-house (which 
afterward gave way to the Old South Church), 
and in front stood the public pilory and stocks. 
We print with this sketch a miniature repro¬ 
duction of the humble abode in which the boy 
Benjamin was born. By persuading his brother- 
employer to give him half the few shillings 
paid out for his keep and let him board him¬ 
self. and by refusing meat and fish and subsist¬ 
ing mainly on bread and biscuit, the young 
Franklin managed to save sufficient wherewith 
to purchase—and to bribe other boys in service 
to forcibly borrow'from their masters’ libraries— 
such books as Xenophon’s “Memorabilia,” 
whereby he acquired a Socratic method of de¬ 
bate. the works of Shaftesbury and Collins, 
whereby he became a quasi-skeptic, and those 
of Addison, whereby he gained a delightful lit¬ 
erary style. Next he read Locke “On the Hu¬ 
man Understanding,” and “The Art of Think¬ 
ing,” by members of Port Royal. Other Works 
included in his studies embraced the subjects of 
navigation, arithmetic, rhetoric and grammar. 

Thus in the school of self-study and observa- 


134 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


tion he became a scholar, and with the added 
advantage of age and experience grew to be 
one of the wisest men in wit, diplomacy and 
statecraft, a brilliant conversationalist, a linguist, 
a scientist, a philosopher, an economist, and a 
master of the art of utilizing men and means, 
earning for himself the cognomen of ‘‘The Many- 
sided Franklin.” 

Picture this boy in his garret, by the glim¬ 
mer of his tallow dip assiduously acquiring an 
education which the accident of lowly birth had 
otherwise denied, and writing essays for pub¬ 
lication in his brother’s paper, the “Courant” 
(which had succeeded the “Boston News Let¬ 
ter”), pushing his copy under the front door 
of the print-shop in the still watches of the 
night lest someone might discover their author, 
and thus getting his writings published over 
the suggestive pen-name of “Silence Dogood.” 
Picture him, again, running away from his irk¬ 
some employment and taking ship for Phila¬ 
delphia at the age of seventeen years, without 
lecommendation or knowledge of any person in 
the place, arriving with but 'a shilling in his 

purse and tramping the streets of the Quaker 

City with a penny roll under each arm, his 

pockets bulging with protruding portions of his 
spare wardrobe consisting of a shirt and a brace 
of woolen socks. Compare this picture with 
that of the same boy grown to manhood’s 

estate, the representative of his struggling coun¬ 
try at the courts of St. James and Louis XVI, 
matching his wit with the inquisitors of par¬ 
liament and such masters of acrimonious debate 
as Fox, Grenville and Wahpole, and wheedling 


BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 


135 


the “sinews of war” for the almost bankrupt 
colonies out of the French King and his wiley 
premier, the Comte de Vergennes, even against 
what they conceded to be their better judgment, 
acquiring a speaking knowledge of the French 
language at the age of 70, facing his revilers 
and maligners in the tribunal of a hostile throne 
dressed in a suit of spotted Manchester velvet— 
the cunning garb of the leopard, exulting when 
others despaired and triumphing where others 
failed; compare, we repeat, .this composite pic r 
ture of achievement unaided but by sheer force 
of will and a patriotism not even second to that 
of the immortal Washington, and never should 
its portend be effaced from the heart and mind 
of any boy who means to make the most of life, 
not matter what his station, nor from the mem¬ 
ory of any man however thwarted in life’s ad¬ 
vancing autumn by the vicissitudes of the 
world’s unending strife. 

As a young printer in Philadelphia Franklin 
soon drew attention by his pithy sayings inter¬ 
larded among the many historical, astronomical 
and astrological data in his yearly Almanac, a 
kind of publication then about the only literary 
periodical of the country. His acumen taught 
him to hide the identity of the writer under 
the name of “Poor Richard” until his reputa¬ 
tion had become firmly established, but such was 
the characteristic style of these quaint and 
homely epigrams that its discovery long ante¬ 
dated his acknowledgment of their authorship. 
Many of these sayings have become household 
saws and constitute a goodly portion of the 
folklore maxims of the American people. Pressed 


136 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


to tell from whence he got them, he answered 
that they were gathered from the round world, 
but it is quite certain that most of them were 
evolved out of his own fertile brain. 

Who can read without an inward smile and 
reflecting how true it is that “Sloth like rust, 
consumes faster than labor wears; while the 
used key is always bright”; that we should 
“handles our tools without mittens” because “the 
cat in gloves catches no mice”; that “a small 
leak will sink a ship”; that “a plowman on his 
legs is higher than a gentleman on his knees”; 
that “Fond pride of dress is, sure, a very curse; 
ere fancy you consult, consult your purse”; 
that “Great estates may venture more, but 
little boats should keep near shore”; that “those 
have a short Lent who owe money to be paid at 
Easter”; that “He that falls in love with himself 
will have no rivals”; that “Experience keeps a 
dear school, but fools will learn in no other”; 
and “’Tis hard for an empty bag to stand 
upright.” 

It was while engaged as a young master 
printer in Philadelphia that on September 1st, 
1730, he took a sweet revenge by marrying Mrs. 
Deborah Rogers (nee Reed), a handsome young 
widow who had laughed at his grotesque ap¬ 
pearance when he first arrived in town. The 
venture was entirely congenial, the union lasting 
until her death in 1774. The issue of this mar¬ 
riage was a son, Francis Folger Franklin, who 
died in childhood, and a daughter, Sarah, who 
became Mrs. Richard Bach, and through whom 
a considerable progeny has descended. 



Franklin Signing the Declaration of Independence 



































































































































































































































































































BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 


139 


With the exception of Washington, no man 
was ever more implicitly trusted by his fellow 
countrymen than Franklin. Was there a grave 
question to be decided, he was invariably called 
in counsel; was a representative or agent re¬ 
quired to further some important business for 
the people, Franklin was chosen as by common 
consent. Did anyone wish to promote some 
worthy undertaking, something requiring the 
expenditures of large sums of money, Franklin 
must become its sponsor ere it could succeed. 
Was a problem presented upon which the wise¬ 
acres were in hopeless division, Franklin's opin¬ 
ion settled the dispute; and so firm was the 
people’s confidence in his integrity that, although 
maligned behind his back, while across the sea, 
spending more than a quarter of a century in 
foreign lands in the effort to promote his coun¬ 
try’s welfare, and although abused by no less a 
person than the astute John Adams, who smart¬ 
ed under the unfeigned preference of his illus¬ 
trious colleague on the part of the French nobil¬ 
ity while the two, with Jay, were jointly com¬ 
missioned to pave the way for peace in the final 
stages of the Revolutionary War, nevertheless, 
to his dying day he was ever regarded by the 
public with that deep reverence and loving solici¬ 
tude which only come from sterling integrity, a 
broad Christian-like charity, and an undeviating 
rectitude of conduct in the everyday walks of 
life. 

Franklin was a natural born wit, and to him, 
perhaps more than to any other, Americans owe 
their proverbial sense of humor. No situation, 
however serious, ever found him without this 


140 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


saving balm. For this reason he was always 
a welcome guest even among those who differed 
with him on economic or political questions. 
His humor was of that original, quaint and 
spontaneous variety which left its victims dis¬ 
armed of malice yet without a shield or weapon 
for defense. A few instances will suffice tG 
illustrate this trait, though many others might 
be given of equal force and cogency: 

He had been appointed as one of a committee 
of five to draft the famous Declaration of Inde¬ 
pendence which presaged the breaking out of 
the Revolutionary War. It was a time of deep 
concern, anxious meditation and hasty prepara¬ 
tion for hostilities. When the solemn occasion 
for signing this momentous instrument arrived, 
and each member of the assembly came forward 
to affix his signature, Harrison (some say it 
was Hancock), who had just attached his name, 
turned to the group about him, among which 
stood Franklin, and said, gravely, that “all must 
now hang together in the country’s defense,” 
whereupon Franklin replied, “Yes, we must all 
hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang 
separately.” 

Lord Howe, commanding the British forces 
at the outset of the conflict, after the battle of 
Long Island had brought an important advan¬ 
tage to the King’s side, asked for a parley with 
the Revolutionists for the expressed purpose of 
arranging “an accommodation,” and Franklin 
with two others were deputized to attend the 
conference. The general received them with 
much courtesy and gave them a lunch before 
proceeding with a speech of elaborate civility, 


BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 


141 


concluding by saying: “I feel for America as 
for a brother, and if America should fall I should 
feel and lament it like a brother/’ whereupon 
Franklin replied: “My lord, we will use our 
utmost endeavors to save your lordship that 
mortification.” 

He was as ready to joke even at his own 
expense. In the course of his experiments with 
electricity he conceived the notion of killing a 
turkey by means of electric shock instead of the 
gruesome method of chopping off its head. Quite 
a company were present to witness the experi¬ 
ment. The jars had been charged and the elec¬ 
trodes affixed, when he inadvertently happened 
to touch the ends of the wires, thereby receiv¬ 
ing the full force of the current through his 
body, the effect of which was to render him 
momentarily unconscious. Recovering sufficient¬ 
ly to realize what had occurred, he remarked: 
“Well, I meant to kill a turkey, and instead 
nearly killed a goose!” While Deputy Post¬ 
master General under the crown he franked his 
official letters “Free. B. Franklin”; but when 
the Continental Congress appointed him to the 
same office, after the war of independence had 
begun, he changed this inscription to —“B. 
Free Franklin.” 

Sometimes this humorous turn took on a 
biting form of wit. While ambassador to France 
he had sent a certain sum of money in charge 
of one Digges for distribution among American 
prisoners of war in England, much of which 
was embezzled by Digges, upon learning which 
Franklin remarked: “If such a fellow be not 
damned, it is not worth while to keep a devil.” 


142 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


That this quick sense of humor was natural 
is illustrated by his laconic retorts when he lay 
upon his death-bed. Although in great pain 
from a combination of ailments\he insisted on 
getting up in order to have his bed re-made, 
because, as he said, he wished to “die in a de¬ 
cent manner.” When his daughter expressed 
the conventional wish that he might yet re¬ 
cover and live many years (notwithstanding his 
great age of eighty-four), he replied, “I hope 
not.” During a period of excruciating pain 
when he was advised to change his position so 
that he could breathe more easily, he answered 
—and these are the last words he is known to 
have uttered—“A dying man can do nothing 
easily.” 

As humor lies very close to pathos, it may 
be surmised that, like all humorists, Franklin 
had a fine sense of the emotions, and although 
not a poet in the strict meaning of the term 
some of his remarks are worthy of being per¬ 
petuated as among the fine sayings of the bards. 
Referring to his advanced age and increasing 
infirmities he once said: “I often hear persons, 
whom I knew when children, called ‘old’ Mr. 
Such-a-One, to distinguish them from their sons, 
now men grown and in business, so that by liv¬ 
ing twelve years beyond David’s period, I seem 
to have intruded myself into the company of 
posterity, when I ought to have been abed and 
asleep.” 

In the field of applied science Franklin rose 
to be acknowledged as a world figure. He in¬ 
vented an improved stove which for many years 
was known as the “Franklin Stove,” to take 


BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 


143 


the place of the conventional Dutch oven or 
fireplace, and far more convenient and efficient 
than either, being constructed on the principle 
of the siphon, so that the fire was made to 
draw downward, thus consuming its own smoke. 
He also made important discoveries regarding 
the movements of air currents and showed why 
storms often travel in opposite direction from 
the course of the wind. 

It was in 1746 that Franklin’s attention was 
first drawn to electricity. The Leyden jar had 
been perfected, resulting in a great deal of pop¬ 
ular interest in electrical experiment. In the 
course of a year’s work he ascertained a fact 
which went far to revolutionize the whole art. 
Discarding the idea that electricity was a sub¬ 
stance created by friction, he maintained that 
it was “really an element diffused among, and 
attracted by other matter, particularly by water 
and metals.” He proved that the Leyden jar, 
no matter how highly electrified, contained no 
more electricity than it did before it was 
charged, what was added to one surface being 
taken from the other. Thus he gave to the 
world the idea of a positive and negative in¬ 
fluence in this subtle force, or, as he sometimes 
phrased it, of a “plus” or “minus” state. Not 
merely did this account for and explain the 
great mass of known phenomena, but the evo¬ 
lution of modern electrical achievement may be 
said to date from this discovery, for by it the 
mysterious fluid, from being merely a curiosity, 
became, potentially, a new force and power. 

Others had suggested the probable identity 
of electricity and lightning, but he went fur- 


144 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


ther than hypothesis and proved the fact in ac¬ 
tual demonstration by drawing it from the 
clouds. He invented the lightning-rod, the use 
of which for many years became well-nigh uni¬ 
versal ; and it is regrettable that the machina¬ 
tions of swindlers have nearly rendered obso¬ 
lete the employment of this important instru¬ 
mentality. His experiments with the kite are 
too well known to need exposition here. 

Franklin’s promulgation of the smoothing 
effect of oil thrown upon troubled water—even 
upon the ocean, drew the world’s attention to 
an expedient that has since served to save the 
lives of many a hard-pressed crew adrift amid 
turbulent waves in a small open boat, and his 
investigations on the causes of the gulf-stream 
and other warm currents of the ocean added 
greatly to the science of navigation. Having 
crossed the ocean himself eight times, the fact 
that ships had much shorter voyages from 
America to England than in returning, caused 
him to experiment and finally to elucidate the 
phenomena much to the advantage of the world’s 
progress on the high seas. 

Aside from these, the most important of his 
many discoveries and inventions, may be men¬ 
tioned his use of bi-focal lenses in spectacles, 
whereby those who need different glasses for 
reading and going about, may have them com¬ 
bined in one frame. 

Franklin founded the Philadelphia Library, 
the first circulating library in the country, and 
set in motion the project that resulted in the 
institution of the University of Pennsylvania. 
For many years he held the office of Postmaster 


BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 


145 


General of American Colonies, in which posi¬ 
tion he introduced and perfected the excellent 
postal system which in the main is still in force 
throughout the United States. For his scien¬ 
tific discoveries and demonstrations he was 
elected a member of the Royal Society of Lon¬ 
don and received the Copely gold medal. In 
1753 lie received the degree of “Master of 
Arts” from Harvard College, and in 1762 the 
degree of “Doctor of Civil Laws” from the 
universities of Oxford and Edinburgh. Upon 
his departure from the French capital, after 
having negotiated the preliminary terms of 
peace between Great Britain and the American 
Colonies, he received from the King of France 
a medallion portrait of the monarch set about 
with two rows of four hundred diamonds, in 
token of the latter’s appreciation of his great 
services to humanity and the cause of liberty. 
From 1785 to 1787 he served as President of 
Pennsylvania, and was a member of the Con¬ 
vention which sat in Philadelphia to frame 
the Constitution of the United States. In 1872 
a bronze statue was erected to his memory in 
Printing-house Square, New York, and inaug¬ 
urated with imposing ceremonies. 

Franklin died on April 17, 1790, at the ripe 
age of 84 years, in his comfortable home in 
Philadelphia, the city he loved so well. A great 
procession and concourse of citizens escorted 
his funeral, the services of which were held in 
the Zion Society Lutheran Church, which then 
stood on the corner of Fourth and Cheney 
Streets. He was buried beside his wife and 
little son in the family burial plot of Christ 


146 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


Church Cemetery, where through a grilled iron 
gate his modest grave may be seen by the 
casual passerby. While not a professed Chris¬ 
tian, his life in its mature years was a splendid 
emulation of the Saviour’s example, in self- 
abnegation, tolerance and an ever-expanding 
charity for the shortcomings of mankind; and 
he believed in the Supreme Being and in the 
glorious hope of immortality, as may be at once 
inferred from the reading of his epitaph written 
by himself, and with a reproduction of which 
we close this hurried sketch. 

Franklin was American to the core. In him 
were embodied those ideals and principles which 
have made the American government transcen- 
dantly great among the nations of the world. 
While his brain was marvelous in its many-sided 
capabilities, his nature was intensely cosmo¬ 
politan—human. He loved his fellow men in 
every walk of life and despised all forms of van¬ 
ity and needless ostentation. He was exceed¬ 
ingly practical and the very soul of honor in 
the keeping of his engagements. It was indeed 
fortunate for the struggling peoples who sought 
to build a nation that should endure for all 
time, that at a timely hour such a man was 
given them for counsel and guidance; and on 
the bright pages of history where is recorded 
human effort for the amelioration of the com¬ 
mon lot, the name of Franklin will ever be 
found among the illustrious, the true and. the 
good. 


BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 


147 


EPITAPH 
The Body 
of 

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 
(Like the Cover of An Old Book, 

Its Contents Torn Out, 

And Stript of Its Lettering and Guilding) 
Lies Here, Food For Worms 
Yet the Work Itself Shall Not Be Lost 
For It Will, As He Believed, Appear Once 
More, 

In a New 

And More Beautiful Edition 
Corrected And Amended 
By 

THE AUTHOR 


148 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


Esaias Tegner 


There sat on one of Pindar’s thrones, 

In extinct court, a bard adept, 

His harp with all its crystal tones 
Lay silent on his arm and slept. 

Then up arose a younger race, 

With ’larms their darkening vales begat, 

And strove in vain to gain the place 
Enthroned whereon the master sat. 

Came then a stripling with his lyre 
Upon the wild unseemly brawl; 

He knew full well the struggle dire, 

But not the import of it all. 

“What means,” he cried, “this endless strife 
His metre-rule is not our own. 

From other heights he visioned life, 

His songs live in another tone!. 

As flow’rs change on the rural green 
So shift the singers of our time; 

In many hues they strive serene 

And praised is all ingenious rhyme! 

Hail thee, amid the classic ruins, 

Thou wondrous bard above the throng! 

Thou Farus, spared, who still illumes 
A glorious bygone world of song!” 




ESAIAS TEGNeR 







ESAIAS TEGNeR 


131 


Thus spake the stripling undismayed 
To him in ancient vesture clad, 

Whilst at his feet he gently laid 
A simple wreath, the best he had. 

The sun descends, the day has fled. 

And night stands on the mountain heights, 
And ’round the singer’s hoary head 
The torch of olden mem’ry lights. 


The foregoing poem, which we have translated 
directly from the original text with an endeavor 
to preserve its esoteric thought and lyric beauty, 
may well be regarded as the keynote of Tee¬ 
ner’s muse. While written ostensibly as a fore¬ 
word to his romantic epic “Axel”, and dedicated 
to the poet Leopold, it was evidently aimed at 
the critics of both these bards of the old classic 
school. We have chosen this poem, therefore, 
not only as an example of Tegner’s beautiful 
style and profound imagery, but also as an indi¬ 
cation of his view of what should constitute a 
true poet’s aim and effort, namely, to body forth 
beauty in the abstract and in the form of ancient 
accepted models in order that the changing 
aspects of time shall leave untouched, as it has 
in classic art, the pure standards of ideal 
thought. 

Herein, we conceive, lies the basis of Tegner’s 
title to that of the greatest poet of modern 
times. In this field and method, however, he 
was not alone among his contemporaries, but 
what distinguished him from these and placed 
him, while yet living, upon so lofty an eminence 
in the world of song was the choice he made of 



152 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


his materials and the modern touch of color 
with which he clothed his themes. For the first 
he took the virile sagas of Viking lore instead of 
invading the well-trodden arena of Greek and 
Roman legend, and for the latter he chose the 
more refined and familiar language and customs 
of modern times. True, for this he was accused 
of literary vandalism, but the people, from prince 
to peasant, read his “Frithiof’s Saga”, his “Axel” 
and his “Svea” and others of his most celebrated 
poems with an intensity of heart-interest and 
admiration unprecedented in the literary annals 
of the North, and the translation of “Frithiof’s 
Saga” into nearly every language of the civ¬ 
ilized globe attests the unerring judgment of the 
masses in all that is best of man’s product of 
heart and brain. 

Esaias Tegner, a fifth son, was born in the 
parsonage of Kyrkerud. Vermland, Sweden, 
November 13, 1782. His paternal grandfather 
was a peasant, whose surname was Lucasson, 
living in the little village' of Tegnaby, in 
Smaland, and the change of name on the part 
of his son, the poet’s father, was due to a cus¬ 
tom then prevalent of Latinizing surnames of 
common derivation on a student entering any of 
the high schools, to one of which the latter was 
sent in order to fit him for the ministry, and 
who took the name of his birthplace instead of 
that of his family as a base for Latinizing his 
name. At the tender age of nine the young 
Esaias had the misfortune to lose his father, 
whereby his mother, with several small children, 
among them a child of defective mind, was left 
in a state of almost pressing poverty. For a 


ESAIAS TEGNER 


153 


time the family lived upon a small farm some 
few miles distant, which, by reason of the 
father’s connection with the church, still re¬ 
mained subject to their use, in order the better 
to afford the bereft widow and her little ones a 
possible means of livelihood. 

It was while living here in this little village, 
called Ingrirud, that we have a first glimpse of 
the coming bard. Young Esaias one day while 
playing in the farmyard came upon a little dead 
gosling which, he surmised, not without good 
reason, had been killed by one of the predatory 
animals or birds that infested the neighborhood. 
The little dead thing excited his compassion, 
and he proceeded to bury it in a manner, as 
seemed to him, befitting the occasion. On an 
old burial mound nearby he dug a small grave, 
into which he deposited his charge, prayerfully 
covered it over and inserted in the earth a stick, 
upon which he fastened a piece of paper in¬ 
scribed with the following original verse,—the 
first flower of his genius: 

Lucky thou, little gosling now, 

No fox, no crow, no raven 

Shall reach thy haven. 

A short distance northwest of Karlstad lived 
at this time one Jacob Branting, a friend of the 
family and one of the assessors of the district, 
who, having need of assistance in his office and 
doubtless knowing the need of the family, took 
the young Esaias, then ten years of age, into 
his office as a clerk. The boy wrote a, good, 
legible hand and soon gained from his employer 


154 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


a recognition of being unusually bright and in¬ 
telligent. In fact, he became fond of the lad’s 
society and often took him along in his chaise 
on journeys connected with his business, more 
on account of the pleasure of his society than 
for any special purpose. Young “Esse”, as his 
employer called him, became during this time 
an inordinate lover of books and soon availed 
himself liberally of the use of his master’s 
library. Soon his conversation took on a philo¬ 
sophical trend and his frequent reference to the 
processes of nature, both terrestial and celestial, 
led his employer to believe that the boy was 
gifted beyond the ordinary youth of his age. 
Mingled with this serious inclination of mind 
there was also observable a readiness of wit and 
a buoyancy of spirit which greatly accentuated 
his personality among those with whom he came 
in contact. An early instance of this is afforded 
in the story related by the poet, Carl William 
Bottiger (who became his son-in-law), in his 
excellent portraiture of Tegner: 

“One day,” says Bottiger, “there was an un¬ 
usual rush of business in Assessor Branting’s 
office. A somewhat self-important Lansman or 
sergeant,—a sort of rural district officer, was im¬ 
patiently waiting the completion of a document 
which young Tegner was busily transcribing. 
It was the days of blotting ink with sand, and 
the young scrivener in his haste proceeded to 
spray his freshly written paper with the con¬ 
tents of the ink-stand instead of the sand-cruet! 
The sergeant, observing this, and being angry 
at the dela)' which the accident foreboded, ex¬ 
claimed, ‘God knows what time will ever make 


ESAIAS TEGNeR 


155 

of you, who blunders in this manner!’ ‘Well,’ 
calmly replied the young man, ‘I may at least 
be good enough for a Lansman!’ ” 

Another incident may serve to illustrate the 
studious nature of the lad and which at the 
same time resolved his benefactor in the purpose 
of making something more than a clerk of his 
protege. One starry night as the two were 
returning from Karlstad, Branting, who was a 
pious man, took occasion to speak of God’s 
handiwork as portrayed in the spangled beauty 
of the heavens and of the evidences of omni¬ 
potence and wisdom manifested thereby. The 
boy’s answer disclosed a considerable knowledge 
of the cosmic system of the universe and he 
proceeded to speak of the motions of the heav¬ 
enly bodies in a manner that astonished his 
older companion. “How do you know all this?” 
inquired the latter. “I have read it in Bastholm’s 
‘Philosophy for the Unlearned’ ” (Philosophic 
for Olarde), replied the fourteen-year-old lad. 
Branting was silent; but a few days later he 
observed: “You must become a student. You 
can learn nothing more with me, and I believe 
you were born for something better. If that is 
the case,” he added, “do not forget to thank 
the Giver of all good things.” 

Our limited space will not permit a detailed 
account of his student course, nor is it really 
necessary in order to form an estimate of his 
character and progress. Suffice it to say that in 
due time he was admitted to the University at 
Lund and, as might be expected, there fulfilled 
the highest hopes of his foster-father and other 
benefactors who came to his aid. Another inci- 


156 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


dent, however, which throws light upon an inner 
phase of his nature should not be omitted: 

By an order of the faculty at the Lund Uni¬ 
versity, the old trees of the wooded campus 
(Lundagarden) had received a severe pruning 
and lopping in order to preserve them from too 
rapid decay. The immediate result, however, 
was to present a sorry spectacle to the eyes of 
the students who were wont to spend much of 
their leisure time beneath the cool and dreamy 
canopy which their spreading crowns afforded. 
Going to the wood in a body at night they 
picked up a great number of the severed limbs 
and branches which the workmen had not yet 
removed and proceeded to the house of the Rec¬ 
tor, and with a loud cry of “pereat Rector, vivat 
Lundagard!” they threw their leafy burdens in 
front of the entrance, thus completely blocking 
it. Young Tegner had been drawn into the 
exploit rather unwillingly, realizing that the 
young men had mistaken the purpose of the 
woodland surgery, but, nevertheless, he was 
known to have been among them, and being also 
a “primus” he was selected by the Rector as the 
principal and spokesman for the entire coterie of 
miscreants. Without denying his own culpa¬ 
bility the young student gave a faithful state- 
men of the whole affair and of his efforts to pre¬ 
vent the uproar, but the Rector, feeling that an 
act of such overt insubordination to his authority 
and personal dignity must not go unpunished, 
even though a vicarious victim would have to be 
provided, ‘proceeded to sentence: 

“You are already,” said he, “an officer of this 
university; you have been nominated primus at 


E SAT AS TEGNER 


157 


the ensuing promotions and might expect great 
success in your profession here. All this is now 
passed. The academic constitution clearly di¬ 
rects that you must relegari cum infamia (be 
expelled with disgrace). Sorry, indeed, am I 
that your good fortune should thus be thrown 
away. Still it might be possible,” he added after 
a pause, “that all might be helped and arranged 
if you would only tell me the names of the ring¬ 
leaders in the riot.” Tegner, incensed at this 
proposal, replied with some warmth that, how¬ 
ever it fared with himself, he would never play 
the informer against his comrades. “We were,” 
he concluded, “two or three hundred altogether, 
and there were very few among them whom I 
knew, but these I will never betray!” 

Perhaps no greater evidence of the high esti¬ 
mation in which he was held by both faculty and 
students at this time can be presented than the 
fact that rather than expel him the entire inci¬ 
dent was allowed to drop. 

About this time Tegner received the sad in¬ 
telligence of the death of his eldest brother, 
Lars Gustaf Tegner, who had been his in¬ 
structor in those elements of learning requisite 
to gain for him an entrance to the University, 
and in many other ways had guided him during 
the crucial years of his early life. The affection 
that had always existed between the two broth¬ 
ers is a beautiful tribute to the character of 
both. Soon thereafter, on Midsummer’s Eve, 
June 24, 1802, he received his laurel-wreath in 
the promotion ceremonies at the famous old 
Cathedral of Lund, where he was crowned “Mas- 


158 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


ter of Arts,” the foremost among a class of 
forty students. 

Close upon this auspicious event in the life 
of a student he composed what is regarded the 
first of his most noted poems, “To My Childhood 
Home” (Till min Hembygd). In order to illus¬ 
trate as best we can the beauty and imagery 
of his thought and style at this period to those 
unable to read this production in the original, 
and as a humble tribute to Sweden’s greatest 
bard, we have translated and append at the 
close of this sketch a few stanzas of this ex¬ 
quisite gem. 

On a visit to Ramen, in Vermland, which he 
Undertook soon after his promotion, after first 
seeking his mother and felicitating with her and 
his benefactor, Branting, his success at school, 
he became enamored of Anna Myhrman, the 
beautiful daughter of Christopher Myhrman, an 
ironmaster of prominence, at whose home the 
young poet had some years before been called 
as instructor of the children in classic literature. 
The young people were now engaged, but not 
until four years thereafter did circumstances 
permit of their marriage. At this hospitable and 
elegant home he also met, for the first time and 
formed a friendship which lasted for life, with 
the rising young poet, Erik Gustaf Geijer, who 
afterwards became a professor in the famous 
Upsala University. Returning to Lund he was 
appointed reader (docens) in aesthetics at the 
University, but was permitted to leave for a 
time for the city of Stockholm, whither he had 
been called as tutor in the house of Director 
Striibing. Here he met and formed a friendship 


I 



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ESAIAS TEGNfiR 161 

with the poet Mikael Choraeus. The gay life of 
Sweden’s capital, however, had no allurements 
for him, and as soon as his engagement was 
over he returned to Lund, where, almost imme¬ 
diately, he was again promoted as assistant lec¬ 
turer (vice-professor) in aesthetics, in which po¬ 
sition he was virtually head of this professorship 
by reason of his principal (Lidback) being made 
rector of the school. During this period he 
formed a strong friendship for the poet and 
fencing-master, Peter Henrik Ling, who not only 
became favorably known for his virile folk-lore 
poetry embodying as its chief subject the an¬ 
cient myths and sagas of the Vikings, but by 
a curious admixture of genius became still more 
famous on account of his system of curative 
gymnastics, commonly known in this country 
as the “Swedish Movement Cure.” 

On August 22nd, 1806, at her home in Ramen, 
he led Anna Myhrman to the altar. An inci¬ 
dent of the marriage, indicating the practical 
good sense of this young girl, is related con¬ 
cerning her bridal-wreath of myrtle which, in 
some manner not explained, did not arrive in 
time for the ceremony, whereupon she twined 
a wreath of wild heather blossoms which, peep¬ 
ing forth from under her dark locks, enhanced 
her beauty even more than the more conven¬ 
tional ornament could have done. The union 
proved a happy one and lasted throughout life,, 
several children blessing it as time went on. 
An interesting relic of their courtship, which 
might have been mentioned before, was the find¬ 
ing in recent years, long after this happy' pair 
had passed away, of a stone up in the woods of 


162 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


Ramen which shows under its coating' of moss 
the initials of E. T. and Av M. It requires but 
little imagination, and two cantos of “Frithiof’s 
Saga” supply abundant hints (Frithiof’s Woo¬ 
ing, and Frithiof’s Happiness) to give to these 
lover inscriptions something more than ordinary 
significance. 

Tegner at this time has been described as a 
remarkably handsome young man, tall, fair¬ 
haired and rosy-faced, with almost classic fea¬ 
tures and a look of intellectual precocity beam¬ 
ing from his bright blue eyes. His tempera¬ 
ment was naturally that of cheerfulness, al¬ 
though, like all poets, sensitive and easily stirred 
to deep emotion or depressing melancholy. His 
studious nature, while often withdrawing' him 
from the ordinary pleasures of life, compensated 
him with accomplishments which few young 
men of his time possessed. He thus became a 
linguist of remarkable scope, mastering not only 
the Greek and Latin languages but also English, 
French and German, as well as being classed as 
a master of his native tongue. Few men at his 
age have become so richly endowed and so 
eminently fitted for their chosen calling. 

In the course of a few years following his 
■marriage he was promoted from one position to 
another in the University, holding for many 
years a professorship while at the same time 
filling the office of bishop of the diocese of 
Wexio, a position which, owing to its connection 
with the school system was as apt to be filled by 
a learned layman of high repute as by one who 
had been regularly ordained after a theological 
course. During these years his fame as a poet 


ESAIAS TEGNeR 


163 


constantly increased, but it was his master- 
work, “Frithiof’s Saga”, that at one bound 
placed him upon the pinnacle of Sweden’s kings 
of song, and made his name and fame known 
throughout the entire world of belles lettres. 
Other of his famous poems about this time 
(1824) are his “Song to the Sun”, and “The 
Young Communicants” (Nattvardsbarnen), 
which the American poet, Longfellow (who for 
a time studied under Tegner), has translated 
under the title of “The Children of the Lord’s 
Supper.” 

Besides the poetic romance “Axel”, and the 
idyll “To My Childhood Home”, which, with 
other poems have already been referred to, 
mention must also be made of the pseudo- 
historical fragment “Gerda”, a romance founded 
on the building of the cathedral at Lund early 
in the 12th century, one of the oldest great 
religious edifices in Europe, as well as having 
the distinction of being the only example of 
pure Romanesque architecture in Sweden. Also 
the shorter but no less brilliant “War-Song for 
the Scanien Reserves”; “King Charles, the 
Young Hero” (Kung Karl, den unge hjelte); 
the notable poem “Svea”, which won him the 
great prize of the Swedish Academy, and the 
pathetic “swan-song” of the poet —■ his last 
tribute to the muse—“Farewell to My Lyre”: 

Farewell, my Lyre! Yes, now thy reign is o’er, 
Lay thee to sleep, for we shall sing no more. 

A great deal of speculation and false rumor 
attaches to the last few years of the poet’s life, 


164 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


owing to a temporary mental abberation which 
gradually overtook him and caused a short 
sojourn in a sanitarium. That this condition 
was partly due to an inherited strain which 
showed itself from birth in one of his brothers, 
aggravated by his constant engrossing labors 
of the mind, is, it seems to us, too plain to need 
further comment, except to remark that the in¬ 
clination to defame has ever been the favorite 
pursuit of those whose little souls smart under 
the radiance of such an intellectual luminary as 
Tegner, and who, seeing “Homer nod” for a 
moment, are quick to seek advantage of the 
lapse wherewith to plume themselves. The sin¬ 
gle fact that he composed many beautiful songs 
after his return from the sanitarium, including 
his last song above mentioned, fully equal to 
some of his prior work, and in other ways com¬ 
ported himself in keeping with his profession, 
amply disproves these ignoble charges. 

But even here, with symptoms of life’s great¬ 
est malady already manifest, his natural wit did 
not forsake him. In one of his letters to a 
friend he writes: “There runs a vein of mad¬ 
ness through my family. With me it has until 
now only broken out in poetry, which is a mild, 
alleviating form of lunacy; but who can say that 
it will always take this course?” 

It may be said, however, that the last years of 
his life were lived in the twilight of rapid 
physical decline, although occasional flashes of 
the old fire were now and then to be seen. A 
trip into Bohemia, while it afforded him the 
pleasure of meeting many noted men of science 
and letters, did not improve his health. After 


ESAIAS TEGN£R 


1G5 


his return from the sanitarium in May, 1841, he 
resumed his office as bishop for a time, with 
ever lessening activity, until 1846, when he re¬ 
quested a year’s rest from active duties and 
thereafter spent most of his time lying upon 
his. couch surrounded by his favorite books. 
Once a day he took an hour’s ride in his car¬ 
riage. As late as September, 1846, he was able 
to make a journey on a visit to his children and 
grand-children in Skane. A few weeks after 
his return he was stricken with paralysis of the 
left side and was compelled to take permanently 
to his bed. Peacefully and gradually he ap¬ 
proached life’s close. His mind brightened per¬ 
ceptibly toward the last, and his fondness for 
the sunlight and the ocean’s changing wonders 
expressed itself in occasional recital of extem¬ 
poraneous verse. 

On a beautiful autumn morning, November 
2nd, 1846, the sunlight burst suddenly in upon 
him through his chamber window, flooding the 
venerable poet with its benignant rays. He had 
written a “Song to the Sun”, now the Sun was 
limning its song to him. Stretching out his 
hand toward the casement through which 
streamed the beaming flood he exclaimed, “I 
lift my hands to the mountains and house of 
God.” Near midnight, while the heavens were 
aflame with a brilliant aura of the Northern 
Lights, which spread a soft and soothing ra¬ 
diance about him, he again uttered this sentence, 
as with scarcely a sigh, his hand clasped in that 
of his weeping wife—the loving companion and 
steadfast friend of his youth, kneeling beside 
him, he breathed his last. 


166 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


Tegner was carried to his grave in the church¬ 
yard in Wexio by a group of sturdy peasants,— 
the class of men from whom he sprang and for 
whom his heart ever beat in warmest sympathy, 
followed by a vast concourse of friends and 
admirers from nearly every walk of life, and on 
his grave was erected a marble cross resting 
upon a block of Swedish granite,—a simple 
monument, but one that symbolizes the out¬ 
standing trait of his character,—his abiding 
faith in immortality anchored upon the solid 
foundation of a true and steadfast heart. 


To My Childhood Home 

Thou, who my childhood gave its mold and 
leaning stanchion, 

Thy mem’ry lingers yet, O home-place, in my 
heart. 

Mine ear still longs to hear thy bounding echoes 
start, 

And distance still adorns thy wood-embowered 
mansion, 

Where thou ’mid mountains lift thy form serene, 

Gigantic, wild, yet with poetic mien. 

How perfect with each line thy simple beauty 
tallies! 

Each thought of thee is clear as heaven’s limpid 
blue. 

In thy cascades alone thy untamed powers 
brew; 

And freedom wanders hushed within thy dusky 
valleys, 



ESAIAS TEGNeR 


167 


As when the skies thy rising mountains cop, 

And wreaths of stars enshrine their lofty top. 

Let each decadent place its showy fashions bor¬ 
row,— 

The site of virtue’s grave, the plague of honest 
thought! 

The folk, where I was born, seek, as their 
fathers sought, 

Life’s simple ways, the plow, their freedom’s joy 
and sorrow; 

The cleanly soul, the faith in life to come, 

Stand moveless as the cliffs, their treasure’s 
home. 

Betrays me now my song?—Your son, O birth¬ 
place, save 

Him in thy bosom fond an humble cot some day, 

Thy candor for his soul, thy virtue for his lay. 

In gen’rous tribute place a tablet o’er his grave; 

And let thy blossom-leaves, thy somber shade, 

Not hide the turf wherein his dust is laid! 


1GS 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


Edvard Hagerup Grieg 


Like many who have risen to great eminence, 
the subject of this sketch won his way through 
adverse conditions, but his course was not so 
much retarded by the usual press of poverty as 
by the burdens of bodily infirmity and distress. 
At the very threshold of his career he became 
a physical martyr from a malignant attack of 
pleurisy whereby he lost the use of one of his 
lungs, and this, together with a persistent asth¬ 
ma, made him a virtual invalid for life. It was 
only when dwelling amid the mountains and 
fjords of his native land that he gained a little 
respite from labored breathing, and it was among 
these that he composed many of his most de¬ 
lightful melodies. 

Edvard Hagerup Grieg was born in Bergen, 
Norway, June 15, 1843. He inherited much of 
his musical talent from his mother, who was 
an artist of more than ordinary ability, and 
from her received his first lessons in singing 
and piano-forte playing while only six years of 
age. Thus from early life he lived in a tonal 
atmosphere and showed marked aptitude for 
what was to be his chosen field, although his 
first expressed ambition was to become a clergy¬ 
man. 

But his aversion to school life and its prosaic 
routine soon changed his desire for scholastic 
pursuits. As indicating how great was this 




EDVARD HAGERUP GRIEG 
































































































































































































































EDVARD HAGERUP GRIEG 


171 


repugnance it is related that he once stood in 
the rain under the eaves of a dripping roof until 
‘‘soaked to the skin”, in order to compel his 
teacher to send him home. Nevertheless, he was 
very fond of reading books of a fantastic or 
poetic character, became in time a most enter¬ 
taining writer of letters—belles-lettres they 
might indeed be called, and he grew to be an 
adept not only in his own language but in the 
German, which he mastered, besides acquiring 
considerable knowledge of French and English. 

From his tenth year until nearing majority 
he lived, except when away studying, with his 
parents and kin on a goodly estate at Landaas, 
a short distance from Bergen. It was here he 
first met the great violinist, Ole Bull, who 
quickly discerned his musical genius, and rec¬ 
ommended that he be sent to the Conservatory 
at Leipsic. He was then only fifteen, and later 
in life, referring to this event, wrote to a friend: 
“Although I had not the slightest idea what it 
meant to study music, I was certain that the 
miracle would happen, and that in three years, 
when my course of studies came to an end, I 
should go back home a wizard-master in the 
kingdom of sounds.” 

It was while studying at this famous institu¬ 
tion that he contracted the malady to which 
reference has been made. He was taken back 
home by his mother to recuperate, but insisted 
on returning to the Conservatory as soon as 
possible to finish his course, which he did, al¬ 
though at great cost to his vitality. 

In 1863 he took up his abode for some time 
in Copenhagen, the home of Neils W. Gade, the 


172 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


head of the Scandinavian School of Music. 
Grieg frankly acknowledges his debt to Gade, 
although in a restricted sense, not a pupil of the 
Danish master. At the latter’s insistence he 
composed a symphony (opus 14), to which Gadc 
gave “such unstinted praise that it fired the 
young composer’s ambition as nothing else had 
done before,” especially after the elder Lumbye 
had produced it at the Tivoli with great success. 

Grieg also gives credit to Norway’s young 
composer, R. Nordraak, for influencing him in 
the ; direction of Northern folk-music. Nordraak, 
whose untimely death was a great blow to our 
coijnposer as well as to many of his countrymen, 
left a legacy to his native land in the grandly 
thrilling music of its national song, “Ja vi elsker 
dette Landet,” and Grieg, in turn, dedicated his 
celebrated “Humeresken” (opus 6) to the mem¬ 
ory of his beloved friend. 

Grieg liked the myths, folk-tales, ballads and 
popular melodies of his own Norway, and used 
to persuade old people to tell him ghost stories 
and the younger ones to sing to him the wierd, 
plaintive songs of the Northland, and he often 
visited the peasant folk in remote valleys to 
listen to their quaint tunes and to watch their 
picturesque dances. 

Another one whose gifts and personality im¬ 
pressed Grieg was the eminent statesman and 
poet, Bjornstjerne Bjornson,writer of the words 
to Nordraak’s famous strain. The great pub¬ 
licist was an ardent admirer of Grieg and his 
music and furnished much of the Norse spirit 
with which the latter teems. 


EDVARD HAGERUP GRIEG 


173 


“Jeg elsker dig” (I Love Thee), Grieg’s most 
popular love song, was probably the lyrical ex¬ 
pression of his affection for N'ina Hagerup, his 
cousin, whom he married in 1867. It is interest¬ 
ing to note that he took the words from Hans 
Christian Andersen’s beautiful poem. Thus, in 
the perusal of the story of this interesting life 
we frequently encounter the names of some of 
the most eminent men of Scandinavia as well as 
those of other lands. Great minds attract great 
minds. 

His wife proved a blessing to him, not only 
as a tender and loving companion, but by greatly 
assisting him in his rising career, for she was 
herself a very excellent vocalist and musician. 
Only one child, a daughter, was born of the 
union, but, unfortunately,the little one died 
when only seven months old. 

Having been granted an annuity of 1800 
crowns from his home government, he gave up 
teaching and, at the urgent request of Henrik 
Ibsen, Norway’s foremost dramatist, he set 
about writing the music to “Peer Gynt”, in¬ 
volving a labor of nearly two years. Much of 
this, his masterpiece, was doubtless inspired by 
the surroundings which he chose in order to 
secure not only seclusion but an environment 
compatible with the spirit and setting of the 
play. He had built for him a hut or “tune 
house”, as he called it, which afterward became 
known as his “lofthus”, on a picturesque site of 
the Hardanger Fjord, known as Sorfjord, about 
half way between Eide and Odde. It consisted 
of a small wooden cabin of only one room, 
“just big enough for a piano, fireplace, and the 


174 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


composer himself, and was perched high up on 
a rock near the fjord.” Not far away was the 
village of Ullensvag, where he spent his nights 
and took his meals, but frequently, in summer, 
he remained in the cabin over night in order 
to catch the dawning of the morning hours, 
often glorious in this region. It was in one of 
these early vigils that he wrote his exquisitely 
beautiful “Morning Mood”. 

Following the removal of the cabin to a less 
accessible place, after “much tugging and pulling,” 
for it was moved bodily, as he says, “in the 
American style,” he rewarded the workers not 
only with money for their labor but with, what 
was more to them, his masterful playing of the 
melodies nearest their hearts. 

But even here he was not entirely free from 
occasional eavesdroppers. So sensitive was his 
nature that he could not endure the presence of 
anyone while composing, and he was finally 
compelled to remove his little tune house to the 
vicinage of his own splendid villa, “Troldhau- 
gen” (Sprite-hdl), about four hours’ ride from 
Bergen, overlooking one of Norway’s many 
beautiful lake-like fjords, “where the surround¬ 
ings breathe the very air of “Solvejg’s Song”. 

Following the completion and production of 
his music to “Peer Gynt”, Grieg’s place as one 
of the world’s masters of music was firmly es¬ 
tablished. As he had opened up new vistas in 
the world of harmony he was, of course, at¬ 
tacked by musical votaries of the stereotyped 
school. But the really great, like Liszt, the in¬ 
comparable virtuoso, whom he met in Rome and 
who was carried into ecstacies by his music, 



Grieg Composing in the Mountains 
of Norway 



* 


EDVARD HAGERUP GRIEG 


177 


stamped him as a composer of the highest rank. 
“Keep steadily on, I tell you,” said Liszt with 
much feeling; “you have the capability, do not 
let them intimidate you!” 

Once his fame was fixed, only physical weak¬ 
ness prevented him from filling many engage¬ 
ments both as a pianist-composer and leader of 
large orchestras, although he did appear at in¬ 
tervals in the principal cities of Europe. Some¬ 
times, just before going on the stage, he would 
take several drops of opium to stimulate his 
weakened frame. But his infirmity never be¬ 
trayed itself to his audience; before it, and under 
the influence of the rapturous music he evoked, 
he was a quivering symbol of vigorous life, 
employing in the climaxes both arms—nay, his 
whole body, in giving emphasis to the score, 
and “shaking out his long, white hair as a lion 
shakes its mane.” 

Though short in stature, frail and slightly 
stooped, Grieg had a striking personality. His 
face was individual, his countenance alert, the 
expression of a thinker—a genius. His eyes 
were keen and dark steel-gray, his hair long, 
and. like Liszt’s, brushed upwards and back. 
His hands were thin, long-fingered and nervous 
—“wonderful hands at the piano.” He was 
bright and quick in conversation, and liked to 
hear and tell a good, clean jest. 

Once while out fishing with a friend and 
neighbor, Frants Beyer, he got an unusual 
theme and jotted it down on a piece of paper 
which he laid on the seat beside him. A gust 
of wind blew it into the water, but Beyer caught 
it and, being someAvhat of a musician himself, 


17S 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


read it carefully, put it into his pocket and began 
whistling the tune. Grieg turned like a flash 
and inquired, “What is that?” “Oh,” replied 
Beyer, carelessly, “only an idea I got.” “The 
deuce you say,” retorted the composer, 
roguishly, “I just got that same idea myself!” 

He was fond of things to eat that have an 
individual flavor—a tang, such as oysters, 
caviare, fancy cheese and other epicurean deli¬ 
cacies, and liked strong, aromatic tea and old 
port wine, though a very moderate user of 
liquor. When alone he was frequently melan¬ 
choly, but even then often exhibited fine satire 
and weird fantasy, directed usually toward him¬ 
self and his chronic infirmities. 

Owing to ever-failing strength he composed 
but little during the last two decades of his life, 
but enough of his work was done to furnish a 
comprehensive estimate of his versatility and 
resourcefulness in the beautiful “kingdom of 
sounds.” The income from the sale of his pieces 
and from his occasional appearance in concert 
brought him a very considerable revenue. His 
favorite composition was his ballad in G minor, 
which he says he wrote with his heart’s blood. 
The most popular of folk-dances in the moun¬ 
tainous regions of Norway are the Spring dance 
and the “Hailing”, of which there are admirable 
specimens in his works. 

Among Grieg’s best known pieces may be 
mentioned: “Humoresken”, the violin sonatas, 
the ’cello sonata, the wedding marches, the 
piano concerto, the songs, “I Love Thee’, “Im 
Kahn”, "The Swan”, “Solvejg’s Song”, etc.; the 
“Peer Gynt” music, the “Holberg” suite, the 


EDVARD HAGERUP GRIEG 


179 


piano sonata, the “Ballade”, and the albums of 
“Lyric Pieces”. 

Late in the summer of 1907, just about the 
time he was considering accepting a proposal 
for a series of concerts in the United States, 
“provided,” he wrote, “it was guaranteed that 
the Atlantic would behave itself,” and actually 
preparing for another concert tour in England, 
he fell seriously ill. Soon thereafter he was 
taken to the hospital at Bergen, and as they 
laid him gently on his bed he remarked, quietly: 
“This, then, is the end”,—the same words which 
Schubert, his favorite composer, uttered before 
he went to his final rest. During the night of 
September 3rd his life ebbed slowly away, but 
his insomnia, from which he had been a con¬ 
stant sufferer, mercifully left him, and with a 
satisfied smile on his kindly, pallid face, he fell 
asleep to wake and suffer no more. 

After the funeral, at which nearly fifty thou¬ 
sand people attended and to ivhich wTeaths were 
brought from scores of the world’s great cen¬ 
ters of culture and many persons high in the 
affairs of life were present or sent their con¬ 
dolences and eulogies, his body was cremated 
and the ashes placed in an urn, as he had di¬ 
rected. This urn, also according to his written 
request, was placed within a grotto in a steep 
cliff projecting into the fjord, visible from 
Troldhaugen, and which can only be reached 
by water. This natural tomb was forever closed 
by a thick, fiat stone upon which was inscribed, 
simply, “Edvard Grieg”. 

“There, looking out over the beautiful lake, in 
the midst of pine trees, with only nature for his 


180 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


companions—the rough, rugged Norwegian na¬ 
ture that gave him birth and whose beauties he 
had made known to the world in his music— 
there he wished to lie, and there he lies.” 

A lady who visited the spot shortly after the 
burial says she noticed some peasants shoveling 
broken stones into the water near the landing 
place. “Why do you do that?” she inquired. 
“Because,” was the wistful reply, “the boats 
must not land here, for we were told that Grieg 
wished to be alone.” 


TT 



NEILS WILHELM GADE 





NEILS WILHELM GADE 


183 


Neils Wilhelm Gade 

Denmark has given to the world several musi¬ 
cians of extraordinary merit, such as Buxtehude, 
the famous organist (1637-1674), Christoph E. F. 
Weyse (1774-1842), writer of operas and a 
number of fine church compositions, and one of 
the tutors of the subject of our sketch; Johann 
Peter Emil Hartman, and his son, Emil Hart¬ 
man, both noted for their contributions to oper¬ 
atic and orchestral pieces, the latter especially 
for his folk dances and songs, and Lumbye, 
who excelled in terpsichorean music to such an 
extent as to be dubbed “The Scandinavian 
Strauss.” But none of these have by reason of 
their productions gained that world-wide recog¬ 
nition usually designated as “international” to 
the same degree as that of the artist of whom 
we here give a brief portrayal. 

Neils Wilhelm Gade was born in Copenhagen, 
October 22, 1817. His father was a musical in¬ 
strument maker and the boy was brought up- 
at the same trade. His first instructions on the 
piano, guitar and violin were given for the bene¬ 
fit of his trade rather than with any thought of 
his becoming a great musician, but he made 
such unusual progress that his father took him 
to the best teachers then known, such as Wer- 
shall, Berggren, and Weyse, upon whose advice 
he was permitted to enter upon a musical career. 
After a season of hard study he secured a posi- 


184 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


tion as violinist in the Royal Orchestra, and in 
a competition for a prize offered by the Copen¬ 
hagen Musical Union for an orchestral work 
produced as worthy an “Opus 1” as Denmark 
had ever heard from a native son. The judges 
w r ere the great Spohr and the celebrated Schnei¬ 
der, and they, without knowing who was the 
composer, at once awarded the prize to the 
overture entitled “Echoes from Ossian,” the 
first great work of Gade. It has kept its place 
on the repertoire of all great orchestras from 
that time (1841) to the present, and is an effec¬ 
tive example of the romantic school in its purer 
form. 

Gade was not a child prodigy when this work 
drew attention to his genius, being then twenty- 
four years of age, but the overture brought him 
more than a prize, for it awakened the interest 
of some of the most influential musicians of 
Europe, such as Mendelssohn, who rendered the 
piece with his famous orchestra, following it 
with Gade’s second masterpiece, the “First Sym¬ 
phony in C Minor.” 

Denmark’s attention was now fixed on Gade, 
and King Christian VIII helped him with means 
to travel in foreign lands to perfect his musical 
education. While abroad he composed his cele¬ 
brated cantata, “Comala”, which made a pro¬ 
found impression in musical circles. At Leipsic 
he alternated with Mendelssohn in conducting 
his famous orchestra, and upon the latter’s death 
was made its sole director until his return to 
Copenhagen in 1848. 


NEILS WILHELM GADE 


185 


Gade married a daughter of the elder Hart¬ 
man, already mentioned, and became a kind and 
effectionate husband and father. 

Edvard Grieg, the celebrated Norwegian com¬ 
poser, studied under Gade in 1862 and spent the 
summer of 1875 as his guest. Gade’s music had 
always a great attraction for Grieg. 

Our Danish composer wrote eight symphonies, 
of which the first in C minor, above referred to, 
and the fourth in B Hat, hold their places on 
the concert repertoire as standard. His sym¬ 
phony in G minor may also be mentioned as 
especially fine. Other instrumental works are 
a splendid overture “In the Highlands,” an over¬ 
ture on “Hamlet,” another entitled “Michael 
Angelo,” a stirring quintette, a sextette and an 
octette, also for strings, and two sonatas for 
violin and piano, the one in D minor being 
one of the most inspired of Gade’s smaller works. 

He was a perfect master of the sonata form 
as established by Mozart and Haydn, but it is 
by his cantatas that he will be chiefly remem¬ 
bered, in which he displays keen knowledge of 
vocal treatment and great melodic grace. His 
two songs of spring, the “Fruhlings-phantasie” 
and “Fruhlings-botschaft” are likely to remain 
standard works in repertoire, the latter being 
an especial favorite with choruses in America 
and England. “The Crusaders” is a work of 
large dimensions and is frequently performed 
in the world’s great musical centers. It is full 
of contrast and" tone color, and the picture of 
the march through the desert, the military fervor 
of the crusaders’ song, and intoxicating sweet- 


186 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


ness of the song of sirens, show great versa¬ 
tility. 

Gade was greatly delighted to hear of the 
performance of his works in America, and stated 
that had he been a younger man he would have 
conducted the trans-Atlantic performance him¬ 
self. “Now I must wait for a still longer jour¬ 
ney,” he said, reflectively. That “longer jour¬ 
ney” was taken on December 21st, 1890. 

By no means a radical in the musical sense, 
he was more free in development and treatment 
than the old masters and more shapely and 
symetrical than Schuman, Liszt or Saint Saens. 
Though a prototype of Mendelssohn, he sang 
of spring with sweeter melodies and of northern 
legends with more sympathetic, brooding touches 
than the former. 

Like nearly all men of conspicuous artistic 
talent he had a playful sense of humor and often 
signed his name in the form of four full notes 
on a musical staff, G-A-D-E; and he was greatly 
amused by a jestful comparison of himself with 
his great musical contemporary, Verdi, made 
by his countrymen by using the word “Gade,” 
which in Danish means “street,” and the name 
“Verdi” or “Verdig,” which in Danish means 
“worthy,” to express their admiration of the 
work of one and their assumed contempt for 
that of the other, by saying: “Gade Musik er 
Verdi Musik, men Verdi Musik er Gade Musik!” 
(Gade music is worthy music, but Verdi music 
is street music.) 

The timd may come when the world, sated 
with syncopated time on the one hand and the 
lurid “soarings after the infinite” on the other 


NEIL/S WIEHELM GADE 


187 


of so many of our modern composers, will seek 
a music that is more reposeful, and then it will 
more fully appreciate the gentle, soothing north¬ 
ern light that shone from the life and works 
of Neils Wilhelm Gade. 



188 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


Abraham Lincoln 

Born in a lowly cot,—the humble habitation 
of the poor, reared by sturdy, frugal parents in 
the primeval forest—the rugged environs of 
hardy pioneers; with scarce a year of school, 
culling the fruits of learning from old and treas¬ 
ured books acquired at random and read by the 
ruddy phantom light of the open hearth; touched 
by the sweet resignation and silent sorrow of 
an angel mother until his soul glowed with the 
warmth of Christian love; tending in village 
store and gathering about its fetid air the glamor 
of the public stump; battling for justice in the 
shuffling forums of the law; roused by the fire 
of a noble passion to fight the entrenched insti¬ 
tutions of human bondage that lay as a gnaw¬ 
ing cancer at the nation’s heart; raised to the 
head of a government espoused to the eternal 
principles of Liberty and Equality, with a grim 
determination to die, if need be, in order that 
these ideals should live,—such was Lincoln, 
the most revered personality that ever a people 
entrusted with the reins of power. 

Great men are often products of their time. 
When the faith of the world was threatened a 
Man came who spoke as no man had spoken 
before; when traffic in human flesh reached its 
climax a man came who once for all decreed its 
overthrow. Truly, He who providently caters 
to the sparrow ministers to the needs of man! 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

























































































ABRAHAM LINCOLN 


191 


Lincoln was the embodiment of the fraternal 
instinct,—of man’s love for his fellow. His sym¬ 
pathy was as broad as humanity itself. He 
would rather pardon than punish, rather cherish 
than hate. He forgot his opponents and forgave 
his enemies. He talked, laughed and wept with 
the candor and simplicity of a child. His heart 
was so large that he wore it in part on both 
sleeves. Although retired and thoughtful in dis¬ 
course on serious subjects, he was extremely 
free and jovial in ordinary moods. He loved 
wit, pathos and poetry and was sensitive to 
every phase of human emotion. Honest, simple, 
loyal and kind, pride was a stranger to him, 
selfishness was not in his lexicon, and the siren 
songs of Mammon fell dead on his ears. He 
had the courage of his convictions, and was 
immovable against the promptings of natural 
justice. If he erred, Virtue knew it, for she was 
always at his side. He was charity incarnate, 
mercy personified, love adorned. Seldom does 
such a man come to the head of a nation, but 
when he does the recording angel smiles and on 
the page of history drops a tear. 

The influence of such a life no one can meas¬ 
ure. Time will never efface it. Lincoln was 
not only truly great, he was truly good. His 
genius consisted in saying and doing just the 
right thing at the right time,—the psychological 
moment, and with an eloquence and method 
peculiarly his own. His address at Gettysburg 
is a nation’s .saddest and sweetest classic, his 
emancipation of the slave is one of the world’s 
greatest achievements. 


192 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


His untimely death at the hands of a crazed 
assassin was more than a tragedy, it was a 
national calamity. It has been said that Liberty 
shrieked when Kosiosco fell; it may be said that 
Mercy sighed when Lincoln died. 

Though stone and bronze may grace, they are 
needless to preserve his memory, for it is en¬ 
shrined in the hearts of all who love what is 
purest and best in the souls and annals of man¬ 
kind. 


Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address 

(Delivered at the dedication of Gettysburg cemetery, 
November 19, 1863. lit was not intended for an oration. 
Edward Everett, one of the foremost public speakers 
of the nation, was the orator of the day. Lincoln’s 
part was to pronounce the formal words of dedication. 
The speech of the former has long ago ceased to be 
read, but the latter’s address—the notes for which were 
hastily scribbled on a piece of paper on his way to the 
cemetery—is one of the choicest bits of elegiac poetry 
the world has ever known.) 

“Fourscore and seven years ago, our fathers 
brought forth on this continent a new nation, 
conceived in liberty and dedicated to the propo¬ 
sition that all men are created equal. Now wc 
are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether 
that nation, or any nation so conceived and so 
dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a 
great battle-field of that war. We have come to 
dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting- 
place for those who here gave their lives that 
that nation might live. It is altogether fitting 
and proper that we should do this. But in a 
larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot con¬ 
secrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The 
brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, 





ABRAHAM LINCOLN 


195 


have consecrated it far above our poor power 
to add or detract. The world will little note, 
nor long remember, what we say here, but it 
can never forget what they did here. It is for 
us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to 
the unfinished work which they who fought here 
have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather 
for us to be here dedicated to the great task 
remaining before us,—that from these honored 
dead we take increased devotion to that cause 
for which they gave the last full measure of 
devotion,—that we here highly resolve that these 
dead shall not have died in vain,—that this 
nation, under God, shall have a new birth of 
freedom,—and that government of the people, by 
the people, for the people, shall not perish from 
the earth.” 


196 TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 



Jenny 


When we speak of true greatness we instinc¬ 
tively comprehend that which rises above the 
material into the realms of the spiritual—qual¬ 
ities of the heart as well as of the mind. There 
have been other singers perhaps equal and, in 
a technical sense, even superior to Jenny Lind, 
but no singer ever rose to such heights of ad¬ 
miration—one might almost say, adoration, by 
reason of both her art and her personal quali¬ 
ties as did this sweet songstress of the North, 
the “Swedish Nightingale.” 

Jenny Lind was born in Stockholm on October 
6th, 1820. Her father was unable to make his 
own living, let alone supporting his family, and 
so the mother taught school until Jenny was 
nine years old, when, unable to carry the bur¬ 
den any longer she was compelled to send the 
child and her aged grandmother to “The Wid¬ 
ows’ Home.” At this charitable institution 
Jenny was very happy, for here she had always 
enough to eat. She had a favorite kitten which 
she used to place on the window-sill and sing to, 
in her own way. 

One day a maid of Madamoiselle Lundberg, a 
noted dancer of the Royal Opera, stopped to 
listen to the child singing to her cat, while on 
her way to the market. “Oh. such a wonderful 
voice, Madame, so like a bird!” she told her 
mistress upon her return. The great danseuse 




































































































































■ 




















JENNY LIND 


199 


was interested and sent for the child. Then 
there was commotion at the Widow’s Home. 
The mother objected, for she did not like the 
stage, but her grandmother insisted. “This is 
her only chance,” she said. So the little girl 
was brought before Mile. Lundberg in her mag¬ 
nificent apartments. The royal dancer was 
delighted at the child’s singing and wrote a 
letter recommending her to Herr Craelius, court 
secretary and singing master of the royal thea¬ 
tre. Herr Craelius was astonished by her voice 
and took her before the royal impressario, Count 
Puke. “How old is this child,” inquired the 
count. “Nine,” “Nine!” he repeated; “but 
this is not a nursery; it is the king’s theatre,” 
and refused to listen to her singing. “Well,” 
said Craelius, “if you will not hear her, I will 
teach her myself, and she will one day aston¬ 
ish you.” The count yielded. The child was 
frightened by his gruff demeanor, but her Viking 
spirit suddenly arose and she poured out a 
flood of melody that brought the impressario to 
his feet, his face twitching with emotion. She 
was accepted on the spot, made at attache of the 
royal theatre, taught to sing, educated, and 
brought up at the expense of the Government. 

Then came a terrible visitation; she lost her 
voice! Too much practice and singing in pri¬ 
vate concerts had overstrained it. With her 
savings she went to Paris to consult the famous 
teacher, Garcia; but he said: “You haVe no 
voice; you had one, but began too early and 
sang too much. Don’t sing for three months 
and then come to see me.” 


200 TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 

At this time the composer Meyerbeer was 
arranging a concert-rehearsal of his new opera, 
“Robert le Diable,” and sent for Miss Lind to 
fill out a minor roll. Ignoring the advice of 
Garcia he placed her before a full orchestra, 
and lo! her voice returned as by a miracle! 

And such a voice! Nothing like it had ever 
been heard before. Many have tried to describe 
it, to analyze it, but perhaps her own estimate 
is the truest and best: “I sing after no one’s 
method,” she said, “only, as far as I am able, 
after that of the birls; for their Master was the 
only one who came up to my demands for 
truth, clearness, and expression.” Lablache, the 
great Italian basso, said: “Each note is like a 
pearl.” A London critic thus described her 
vocal accomplishments: “Her voice, a clear, 
powerful soprano, with a range of nearly two 
and one half octaves, was susceptible of the 
greatest variety of intonation. It met all the 
demands of the composer with the greatest 
facility. No difficulties appalled her. A perfect 
musician herself she revelled in all the roulades. 
Her upper notes filled the vastest area with an 
effect to which nothing but the striking of a 
fine-toned bell could be compared, while her 
most gentle and subdued passages were audible 
at the greatest distances.” 

But it was not her voice alone which caused 
her rapid rise to the highest pinnacle of the 
lyric stage; it was her acting, her histrionic 
art, her peculiarly sweet and winsome manner, 
her pure and symphathetic heart. Mendelssohn 
said: “I have never in my life met so noble, so 
true an art nature as Jenny Lind is. I, have 


JENNY LIND 


201 


never found natural gifts, study and sympathetic 
warmth united in such a degree.” Fredrika 
Bremer, the noted Swedish authoress, wrote to 
Hans Christian Andersen, the Danish poet: “She 
is a great singer, we both agree, but she is 
also a great artist, and she is still greater in 
her pure humanity.” 

Once her gifts and personal charm became 
generally known she was called to perform in 
well-nigh every principal city in Europe, before 
nearly every crowned head. At twenty she was 
made a member of the Royal Swedish Academy 
of Music and was appointed court singer to his 
majesty, Carl Johan. At Nuremburg a medal 
was struck in her honor. Queen Victoria of 
England presented her with a diamond-studded 
bracelet. “I must express my admiration for 
you in some way,” sad the queen, “as well as 
my respect.” 

Her return to Stockholm produced a sensation, 
almost a panic. Both the police and military 
had to be called out to preserve order in front 
of the theatre, so great and insistent was the 
throng. At Copenhagen she was serenaded by 
the Danish students, the first foreign artist to 
be thus honored. Her recalls before the curtain 
exceeded in number that of any artist of which 
there is any record, reaching as many as thirty 
times at one performance of “Norma,” sixteen 
of which came at the close of the final act. Her 
floral tributes were often overwhelming, making 
her appear as if standing ankle-deep in a bed of 
roses. At her farewell concert in London, May 
10th, 1849, the audience stood up three times 
and wept, realizing that this was to be her last 


202 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


appearance in opera. She was then twenty-nine 
and had appeared in thirty different operas 677 
times, including such roles as “Alice,” in Robert 
le Diable, already referred to, “Agatha” in Der 
Freischutz, “Lucia” in Lucia di Lammermoor, 
“Norma” in Bellini’s famdus opera by that 
name, “Amina” in La Somriambula, “Valen¬ 
tine” in Les Hugunots,” “Maria” in the Daugh¬ 
ter of the Regiment, and “Donna Anna” in 
Mozart’s Don Giovanni. 

No lyric artist ever experienced so many tan¬ 
gible tokens of appreciation. Her portrait, 
painted from life, sold for twelve thousand dol¬ 
lars. A medal in gold, silver and bronze was 
struck in her honor at Stockholm and may 
there be seen in the National Museum to which 
she bequeathed it at her death. Her profile 
was carved in marble bas-relief and placed 
among the immortals in Westminster Abbey by 
the English Government, who claimed her as a 
resident at the time of her death at her villa 
near Malvern Hills, in 1887. 

Jenny Lind came to the United States in 
1850 under the management of P. T. Barnum, 
“the circus king,” and gave ninety-five con¬ 
certs, the total receipts from which were seven 
hundred thousand dollars. In Boston and New 
York tickets sold as high as six hundred dollars 
each. Her private charities in this country ex¬ 
ceeded fifty thousand dollars, and on her return 
to Sweden she donated nearly all her earnings 
from her American tour to charity and in the 
founding of schools of music for the poor. Her 
professional tour in the United States was by 
far more brilliant and successful than that of 


JENNY LIND 


203 


any other performer, male or female, musical, 
theatrical or operatic, who has ever appeared 
before an American audience. At the city of 
Washington she was called upon by President 
Fillmore, Daniel W ebster, Henry Clay, and 
other notables, all of whom attended her con¬ 
certs. Her earnings on this tour aggregated one 
hundred and seventy-seven thousand dollars. 
Just before her departure she married Otto 
Goldschmidt, a composer and pianist of merit 
who had been playing her accompaniment, and 
thereafter settled down to private life, as a wife 
and mother, although on special occasions con¬ 
tributing her great talent for the benefit of some 
charitable cause. 

So much for Jenny Lind’s remarkable career. 
Let us now take a glimpse of her personality. 
She was five feet three inches tall, with blue 
eyes, light hair, a face which expressed every 
emotion, a quick, alert mind that comprehended 
everything by the time it was half expressed, a 
dislike for “small talk” and flattery, and a nat¬ 
ural, frank, sincere manner. She was a labor¬ 
ious student, not only of music but of languages, 
of which she mastered five besides her own. 
While vivacious, there was an undertone of 
melancholy in her nature. She was abstemious 
in her habits, drinking neither tea, coffee nor 
wine. She cared little for personal adornments. 
At Hanover, the Queen offered her the choice of 
several fine bracelets, but she selected a small 
bunch of forget-me-nots which were in a vase 
on the table. Her charitable gifts exceeded half 
a million of dollars. She was deeply religious 
and often took comfort in reading her Bible. 


204 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


Only once was she ever known to refer to her¬ 
self as an artist, when, after learning of the 
large receipts from a concert she had given for 
the benefit of the poor, she exclaimed: “Isn’t 
it beautiful that I can sing so!” 

But the stage had no allurements for her. She 
longed to retire from the glare of the foot¬ 
lights. “I want to live near the trees, and 
water, and a cathedral,” she said, “because I 
am tired, body and soul.” A friend found her 
by the seaside with an open Bible before her 
and asked her why she quit the stage at the very 
zenith of her career. “Because,” she replied, 
“eivery day I thought less about this” (pointing 
to the book) “and nothing at all about that” 
(pointing to the sunset). “What else could 
I do?” 

She felt that her voice was a gift from God 
and that she must use it in His service, hence 
she dedicated her life to the cause of humanity. 
She was not exactly beautiful of face, but, as 
the Countess of Westmoreland, wife of the Eng¬ 
lish ambassador to Russia, once said: “I saw 
a plain girl when I went in, but when she be¬ 
gan to sing her face simply and literally shone 
like that of an angel! I never saw anything, or 
heard anything, the least like it!” Perhaps it 
was this remarkable thing about her that made 
an admirer say: “To have seen and heard her 
only once was a treat to last until we go to 
heaven, where alone such music can be heard,” 
and which caused Henrietta Sontag, her great 
contemporary, who had still a greater range and 
a more powerful voice, to declare Jenny Lind 
“the first singer of the world.” 


JENNY LIND 


205 


Topelius, the Finnish poet, on hearing of her 
death, wrote in her memory the following beau¬ 
tiful lines, with which we shall close our humble 
tribute to the “Swedish Nightingale”: 

I saw thee once, so young and fair, 

In thy sweet spring-time, long ago; 

A myrtle wreath was in thy hair, 

And at thy breast a rose did blow. 

Poor was thy purse, yet rich thy heart; 

All music’s golden boons were thine; 

And yet, through all the wealth of art, 

It was thy soul which sang to mine. 

Yea! sang as no one sang ere thee, 

So subtly skilled, so simply good, 

So brilliant! yet as pure and free 
As birds that warble in the wood. 


206 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


Ole Bull 


The violin, king of musical instruments, has 
had many masters, most of them of the accepted 
school, of which Paganini may be said to be 
the prototype of latter days. But it is doubtful 
if any of these obtained the world-wide reputa¬ 
tion, admiration and plaudits of both prince and 
peasant, as did the Norwegian virtuoso, Ole 
Bull. Here, again, as in the case of Jenny Lind 
and Hans Christian Andersen, we find person¬ 
ality contributing not a little to the fame of 
the artist and triumphantly manifesting itself 
through a splendid gift, notwithstanding the 
early press of poverty and cold indifference of 
a skeptical world. 

Ole Bornemann Bull was born in Bergen, 
Norway, February 5th, 1810. His father was a 
physician and apothecary, with an eye to the 
practical things of life, but his other kinsfolk, 
including his mother, were musically inclined, 
and often had musicales in the home, hence the 
child flourished in an atmosphere entirely suit¬ 
able to his nature. It was soon discovered, how¬ 
ever, that the boy, the first born of a group of 
ten children, was altogether too much given 
over to practicing upon a little yellow fiddle 
which his uncle had given him as a plaything, 
and therefore measures were taken to suppress 
this abnormal inclination, especially when it was 
found to interfere with his school studies. But 



OLE BULL 




OLE BULL 


209 


the mother, who was a refined and educated 
woman, finding that whipping and scolding did 
not diminish his ardor for the alluring muse, 
provided him with a music teacher and induced 
the father to procure for him a regular violin. 

Within the short space to two years our young 
genius outplayed his teacher and began com¬ 
posing melodies suggested by the songs of 
birds, the babbling of brooks and the rush and 
roar of the waterfalls. His playing became so 
incessant that he would often rouse the entire 
neighborhood in the middle of the night, to the 
disgust of the sleepers and the chagrin of the 
family, until the father found it necessary to 
take steps to drown his ambition, if possible, by 
sending him to the University at Christiania to 
study theology and law, under a pledge not to 
yield to his passion for music. We find him in 
the capitol of Norway at the age of eighteen try¬ 
ing to become a clergyman in the midst of a co¬ 
terie of musical friends, failing utterly in his 
Studies in Latin but winning the admiration of 
his preceptors for his wonderful playing and 
receiving the appointment of Musical Director 
of the Philharmonic and Dramatic Society of 
Christiania. 

Encouraged by his early successes in playing- 
before sympathetic audiences in his native land, 
he determined to see whether or not he really 
possessed genius, and having saved a portion of 
his earnings as musical director he set out for 
Cassel, Prussia, to interview the celebrated 
Ludwig Spohr, but that personage, notwith¬ 
standing his visitor had come five hundred miles 
to hear him play, declined his assistance, stat- 


210 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


ing that the young man might go to Nordhausen 
where he, Spohr, was to direct a musical festi¬ 
val. Here we see another lost opportunity for 
one who might have perceived and become the 
sponsor for one of the world’s masters of musi¬ 
cal technique, a neglect chargeable to an over¬ 
weening* estimate of his own importance and 
the blinding effect of the obnoxious doctrine of 
superior “kultur.” 

Proceeding to Nordhausen the young Nor¬ 
wegian attended the festival only to be convinced 
that Spohr’s talents were not of the class to 
which he aspired and that the Italian, Paganini, 
whom he had once heard in Bergen, was a far 
greater artist. He returned to Norway and 
launched with all the ardor of his Viking nature 
into what he now determined should be his 
life’s work. He gave concerts at Trondhjem, 
Bergen and other cities of his native land before 
good audiences, saving sufficient money whereby 
he conceived it possible to gain an entrance into 
the musical circles of Paris and perfect himself 
in his art. 

Filled with ambition and hope he arrived in 
the famous capital at a time when a financial 
panic and an epidemic of cholera engrossed the 
people’s attention and none but the most cele¬ 
brated artist was able to secure a hearing. Day 
by day he tramped the thoroughfares and boule¬ 
vards of the city seeking an opportunity to be 
heard, without result. He was advised by a 
fellow-boarder to withdraw his savings from the 
bank, owing to the chaotic condition of the 
money market and, having done so, was prompt¬ 
ly robbed of his money, and his violin. Dis- 


OLE BULL 


211 


heartened and utterly without means he paced 
along the edge of the Seine contemplating sui¬ 
cide by drowning, but recovered his self-posses¬ 
sion to make one more attempt to gain a foot¬ 
ing that might at least lead to the means oi 
providing a livelihood. 

The darkest hour is just before the dawn, says 
an old adage. How often true this is in the 
struggle of life, and especially, it seems, in the 
case of the world’s chosen children; as if an 
ever watchful Providence had ordained that only 
through suffering and hope long deferred shall 
the soul of man rise to the full efulgence of its 
glory. He proceeded to seek for board and lodg¬ 
ings at some place where he might be received 
upon credit for a time and sounded the knocker 
of a well-to-do appearing apartment where a 
sign in the window, “Furnished rooms to let,” 
gave promise of a possible arrangement. An 
elderly lady appeared at the door, to whom he 
frankly stated his predicament and who as 
frankly told him that she had no accommoda¬ 
tion, when her pretty granddaughter called 
from a window above, “Look at the gentleman, 
grandma!” Putting on her glasses the better 
to see the visitor’s face her eyes filled with 
tears when she recognized the close resemblance 
of her applicant to her son who had recently 
passed away. He was invited in and given every 
attention. His reception was indeed, timely, foi 
the next, day he fell ill with brain fever and was 
provided with a physician and nursed back to 
health by this kindly old lady and her grand¬ 
daughter, sans condition and without price. 
While convalescing he received from the Musi- 


212 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


cal Lyceum of Christiania, who had learned of 
his struggles and illness, the sum of eight hun¬ 
dred dollars, and through the influence and sub¬ 
stantial assistance of Madame Villeminot, for 
that was the name of his benefactress whose 
home and hospitality had probably saved him 
from disaster, he gained acquaintance with 
several persons prominent in musical circles, for 
Madame Villeminot was a lady of some means 
as well as a person of quiet refinement and in¬ 
fluence. But to her granddaughter, Felicie, 
should also be given credit for having interceded 
for the tall and handsome youth, and Ole Bull 
not many years later, when his star was in the 
ascendant, gave ample proof of his appreciation 
by marrying the young lady, thereby also show¬ 
ing his good sense, for the union was a happy 
one, lasting until her death twenty-six years 
thereafter. 

From this time on Ole Bull’s career was one 
succession of artistic triumphs. He toured 
through Switzerland and Italy, where he met 
with a most encouraging reception. In Milan, 
however, he was severely criticized because of 
his lack of style, the writer saying “If he be a 
diamond, he is certainly in a rough and unpol¬ 
ished state.” The critic was sought out and in 
response to the inquiry if he came to punish 
the author of the article, Ole Bull replied, “’No, 
I have not come to call the writer to account, 
but to thank him. The man who wrote that article 
must understand music, but it is not enough 
to tell me my faults, you must also tell me how 
to rid myself of them.” “You have the spirit of 
the true artist,” replied the critic, and invited 


OLE BULL 


213 


Ole Bull to accompany him to a celebrated vio¬ 
linist from whom he had drawn much of the 
material for his criticism in the musical journal, 
the result being that the two virtuosos became 
intimate friends, learning much from each other 
in the interchange of ideas in technique and 
style. For six months our rising genius devoted 
himself to study under different master at Ven¬ 
ice and Bologna, at which latter place he 
gained a celebrity that continued through life, 
by taking the place of a famous singer, Madame 
Malibran, who through indispostion and pique 
had refused to appear at a concert for which 
all the available seats had been sold, so great 
was the popularity of the prima donna. The 
manager of the theatre was in despair. Mean¬ 
time Ole Bull was composing in the day time 
and playing his violin at night by his open win¬ 
dow. Rossini’s wife heard the music and said, 
“That violin is a divine one, whoever might be 
the player,” and straightway went and informed 
the manager of her newly found prize, suggest¬ 
ing him as a substitute for Madame Malibran. 

On the night of the concert, while our artist 
was in bed, the manager appeared and asked 
him to improvise for him. The latter was de¬ 
lighted and hurried the young man off to the 
theatre. The audience was at first cold and dis¬ 
appointed on learning of the substitution of an 
unknown violinist for the famous singer they 
had come to hear. He came upon the stage, a 
few strokes upon his instrument and the audi¬ 
ence held their breath. At the close, the house 
shook with applause and he retired amid a hail 
of flowers. He was immediately engaged for the 


214 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


next concert; a large theatre was offered him 
free of expense, one man buying one hundred 
tickets and the admiring throng drawing him 
to his hotel after the performance in a carriage, 
escorted by a guard of honor bearing torches. 
Madame Malibran was at first hurt by the sud¬ 
den appearance of her rival in the realm of 
music, but she soon became one of his warmest 
friends, saying, “A man like you should step 
forth with head erect in the full light of day, 
that one may recognize his noble blood.” 

From Bologna he went to Florence and Rome, 
at the latter city writing in a single night his 
celebrated “Polacca Guerriera,” a composition 
first conceived while he stood alone at Naples 
one night watching Mount Vesuvius in erup¬ 
tion. On his return to Paris lie found the 
Grand Opera open to him. Here, at his first 
appearance, his A-string snapped; he turned 
pale for an instant but immediately transposed 
the remainder of the piece and finished on three 
strings. Meyerbeer, who was present, could 
hardly believe that the string had actually 
parted. It was while on this return to Paris, at 
the age of twenty-six, that he married the pretty 
Felicie Villeminot and to whom he was able to 
write from London, years later, a Iiow long the 
time seems that deprives me of seeing you! I 
embrace you tenderly, and shall soon return 
home, ‘home,’ the word that has above all others 
the greatest charm for me.” 

In London seven thousand persons crowded to 
hear him; the “Times” said, “His command of 
the instrument, from the top to the bottom of 
the scale—and he has a scale of his own of three 


OLE BULL 


215 


complete octaves on each string—is absolutely 
perfect.” At Liverpool he received four thous¬ 
and dollars for a single night, where, in playing 
his “Polacca,” he used such exertion that he 
ruptured a blood vessel, and his coat had to 
be cut from him in the haste of the physicians 
to save his life. In sixteen months he gave two 
hundred and seventy-four concerts in the United 
Kingdom. Afterwards, at St. Petersburg (now 
Petrograd) he played to five thousand persons, 
the Empress sending him an emerald ring set 
with one hundred and forty diamonds. On his 
return to Norway he received a request from 
the King to give five concerts at Stockholm, 
the last netting him five thousand dollars. So 
moved was the King when Ole Bull played that 
he arose and remained standing until the num¬ 
ber was finished, and shortly thereafter present¬ 
ed the artist with the Order of Vasa, set with 
brilliants. In Christiania, the students gave him 
a public dinner and crowned him with laurel. 
At Copenhagen he played before the Royal Fam¬ 
ily, the King presenting him with a gold snuff¬ 
box set with diamonds. Hans Christian Ander¬ 
sen, and Thorvaldsen, the sculptor, became his 
devoted friends, as also the wife of Mozart, for 
whose husband he had the most profound ad¬ 
miration. While in Hungary, his first child,. 
Ole, passed away, whereupon he wrote Felecie,. 
his beloved wife, “God knows how I suffer at 
this blow! But I still hope and work, not for 
myself,—for, you, my family, my country, my 
Norway, of which I am proud.” 

In November, 1843, he visited America. He 
was immediately attacked by rivals. James 


216 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


Gordon Bennett, the famous publisher, offered 
him the columns of the “Herald” in which to 
reply to his critics, but Ole Bull answered, “I 
think, Mr. Bennett, it is best they write against 
me and that I play against them.” Of his play¬ 
ing in New York Mrs. Lydia Maria Child wrote, 
“His bow touched the strings as if in sport, and 
brought forth light leaps of sound with electric 
rapidity, yet clear in their distinctness. He some¬ 
times played on four strings at once, producing 
the rich harmony of four instruments.” His 
playing upon four strings at one and the same 
time was possible to Ole Bull because of his 
using an almost flat or straight bridge, yet suffi¬ 
ciently curved to allow of single string tones, 
a combination, however, requiring exceedingly 
nice bowing and an endless amount of practice. 
Mrs. Child continues: “While he was playing, 
the rustling of a leaf might have been heard ; 
and when he closed, the tremendous bursts of 
applause told how the hearts of thousands leaped 
like one. His first audience were beside them¬ 
selves with delight, and the orchestra threw 
down their instruments in ecstatic wonder.” 

An incident occurred at one of his concerts 
in the South which illustrates that although 
Ole Bull was deeply poetic there was nothing 
effeminate in his nature. A man came to him 
after the concert and said he wished to purchase 
the diamond in his violin bow—a beautiful gem 
given the artist by the Duke of Devonshire. Ole 
Bull replied that it was a gift and was not for 
sale at any price. “But,” answered the stranger, 
“I am going to have that stone,” and drew a large 
bowie knife from his coat. In an instant Ole 


OLE BULL 


217 


Bull felled the man to the flooi with a blow 
from the edge of his hand across his throat. 
Placing his foot upon the man’s chest he re¬ 
marked, “You may go, but the next time you ap¬ 
proach me I will kill you.” Needless to add, 
he saw no more of this stranger. 

His first tour of America netted him eighty 
thousand dollars, besides twenty thousand dol¬ 
lars given to charitable associations and fifteen 
thousand dollars paid to assistant artists. With 
the exception of Jenny Lind no artist ever re¬ 
ceived so many honors from an American public. 
Poems by the hundreds were written to him ; 
gold vases, medals and jewels were presented to 
him. Pie played much for charity and, in sev¬ 
eral instances, to oblige persons unable to leave 
their homes, notably the poetesses Alice and 
Phoebe Carey, also for insane and blind asy¬ 
lums and at hospitals. He loved America and 
called himself “her adopted son.” 

Leaving America he toured through Spain, 
where the Queen bestowed upon him the order 
of Charles III and the Portuguese order of 
Christus. Returning to Norway he built a Na¬ 
tional Theatre in Bergen, which was opened to 
the public in 1850, but the Storthing failing to 
give it a yearly appropriation, the project did 
not prove a success. His next great endeavor 
was the purchase of one hundred and twenty- 
five thousand acres of land on the Susquehanna 
River, in Pennsylvania, where he proposed to 
found “a New Norway, consecrated to liberty, 
baptized with independence, and protected by 
the Union’s mighty flag.” Three hundred houses 
were built, also a country inn, store, and church, 


218 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


all erected by the founder. He laid out five 
villages and made arrangement with the gov¬ 
ernment to cast cannon for a fortress, and took 
out patents for a new smelting furnace. In the 
meantime he kept on playing in order to earn the 
money wherewith to defray the enormous ex¬ 
penses of this gigantic philanthropy, only to 
find, while in California, ill from overwork, that 
he had been swindled in the purchase of the 
land, that the title was invalid and the under¬ 
taking together with his fortune was lost. With 
what money he had left he succeeding in pur¬ 
chasing enough land to protect those who had 
already come from Norway and had settled 
there, after which he became deeply involved in 
law suits. Hon. E. W. Stoughton of New York, 
who had never met Ole Bull personally, volun¬ 
teered to assist him and a few thousand dollars 
was thus wrested from the defrauding agents. 
As if this were not enough to try his soul, his 
beloved wife, Felecie, died shortly thereafter, in 
1862, and his son, Thorvald, lost his life by 
falling from the mast of a sailing vessel in the 
Mediterranean. 

In 1868 he again visited America and nearly 
lost his life in a steamboat collision on the Ohio 
River. He swam to land, saving also his pre¬ 
cious violin. In 1870 he was married to Miss 
Sarah Thorp of Madison, Wisconsin, an accom¬ 
plished lady much his junior in years, who lived 
to write an admirable life of her illustrious hus¬ 
band. A daughter, Olea, was born to him two 
years later. When he was sixty-six years old, 
he celebrated his birthday by playing his violin 


OLE BULL 


219 


on the top of the great pyramid, Cheops, at the 
suggestion of King Oscar of Sweden. 

In the Centennial year of 1876 he returned to 
America and made his home at Cambridge, Mas¬ 
sachusetts, in the house of James Russell Lowell, 
who was then Minister to England. Here he 
enjoyed the friendship of Longfellow, who re¬ 
ferred to him as “The angel with the violin” in 
his “Tales of a Wayside Inn”: 

Ole Bull’s final tour as a musician was made 
in the United States and retrieved for him much 
of his lost fortune, and it is with a distinct feel¬ 
ing of satisfaction that the writer of this sketch, 
though then but a young boy, recalls his tall and 
venerable figure as he stood before a packed 
audience at Minneapolis in the old Academy 
of Music, playing his famous “Sunday Morn¬ 
ing,” in which could be heard the ringing of 
church bells amid the measured tones of a quaint 
religious psalm. 

Most of his life was- lived for others, but one 
thing he did for himself and his immediate fam¬ 
ily, when he built on the island of Lyso in a 
fjord facing the sea some eighteen miles from 
Bergen a beautiful Moorish villa. The island 
is about twenty-five miles in circumference, 
rockbound and covered with pine, birch and 
fern. Here, planned by his own hand, was his 
elegant home overlooking the ocean; here his 
choice music-room upheld by delicate columns 
and curiously wrought arches. It is today the 
property of his granddaughter, Sylvia Bull 
Vaughn, whose mother was Olea Bull, and who 
makes it her summer home as well as keeping 
it open for visitors. Besides the spacious music- 


220 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


room, several apartments open from it. Here 
are to be seen busts of Beethoven, Mozart and 
Paganini, an old-fashioned grand piano, and 
another more modern, whose artistic case is 
beautifully carved—the handiwork of Ole Bull 
himself. Here also are portraits of Sarah Bull, 
his second wife, of Olea Bull, his daughter, and 
of Julia Marlowe, the American actress, who 
was a personal friend of the family. On the 
second floor are portraits of Longfellow and 
Abraham Lincoln and prints of festival scenes 
in the life of Ole Bull. 

To this beautiful home Ole Bull came one 
day in the summer of 1880, sick and exhausted, 
and there, on August 17th of the same year, he 
breathed his last, holding in his hand a spray 
of heather, his favorite flower. A few days later 
the body of the master was borne into the great 
music hall, where it lay in state before the mir¬ 
rored fireplace under a canopy of Norwegian 
flags and a mass of palms. His funeral was an 
imposing sight. To the music of church bells 
tolling farewell to him from the shores of the 
mainland he was borne to Bergen by water, 
escorted by warships, merchant and fishing 
craft, their flags at halfmast, falling in behind 
the funeral ship as it steamed into the mountain- 
bound harbor of Bergen. The quay was cov¬ 
ered with juniper and the whole front festooned 
with green. As the boat touched the shore one 
of Ole Bull’s inimitable melodies was played. 
Young girls dressed in black bore trophies of 
his success and distinguished men carried his 
jewels and decorations. The streets were strewn 
with flowers and heaps of blossoms showered 


OLE BULL 


upon the coffin. Bjornson, the famous author, 
gave an address, and his friend, Edvard Grieg, 
the composer, laid a laurel wreath upon the 
bier, saying as lie placed it, “In the name of our 
Norse memorial art.” Hundreds of peasants 
brought green boughs, sprigs of fern and flow¬ 
ers that quite filled the grave,—a splendid trib¬ 
ute to a beautiful life. 

Two notable statues in bronze have been 
erected to his memory, one by Stephen Sind- 
ing at Bergen, and the other by the late Sculp¬ 
tor Fjelde, of Minneapolis, Minnesota, where 
it may be seen in Loring Park. 

Ole Bull lies buried in the center of the ceme¬ 
tery at Bergen, directly beneath the heights. 
He sleeps under a coverlid of ivy, and a bronze 
urn rises above the grave. Rose trees, lilacs, 
and maples embower him,— 

And the Nightingale floating aloft in the breeze 

Sings the notes he so deftly beguiled, 

And the mountains he loved look down through 
the trees 

On the green-covered bed of their child. 


222 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


Jacob A. Riis 

There was a son of Denmark who, like that 
great son of Sweden, John Ericsson, has left 
his impress upon American life and history, 
namely, Jacob Riis. That impress was of such 
a nature and effect that one of our country’s 
leading citizens who became a president of the 
land, said of him: “In all the United States I 
never knew of a more useful man nor a stancher 
citizen.” 

Hailing from “The Old Town” of Ribe, Jut¬ 
land, with its drowsy charm and historic tradi¬ 
tions, its cathedral where King Valdemar and 
his two queens, Dagmar and Bengerd lie buried, 
young Riis, born in 1849, grew up in a family of 
which he was the thirteenth child. His father, 
a Latin teacher in Ribe, had laid out a literary 
career for the boy, but on the latter’s protest he 
was allowed to learn the carpenter’s trade, little 
dreaming that the father’s choice, as the sequel 
showed, was much closer to his natural bent. 

But, as Tegner says of Karl the XII, “There 
beat a heart so steadfast within his manly 
breast,” that his life-work soon began to assert 
itself. At the age of twenty-one we find him 
in New York with forty dollars in his pocket 
and for six years following he led a varied 
existence, building miners’ huts in Pennsylvania, 
mining coal, making bricks, driving team, and 
peddling flatirons and books. At twenty-seven 



JACOB A. RIIS 



JACOB RIIS 


225 


he spent his last dollar in returning to New 
York, hoping to enlist through the French con¬ 
sul in the Army of France against Germany in 
the Franco-Prussian war, but his services were 
declined and he was obliged to accept a begin¬ 
ner’s place as a reporter for a news bureau in 
New York, which, however, led him directly 
into his heart’s desire, for it afforded him the 
opportunity of studying the condition of the 
poor on the then delapidated “East Side” of 
the city. 

With the meagre capital of $75, and his notes 
for $575, lie succeeded in buying out the nearly 
bankrupt “Brooklyn News,” and made such a 
success of the venture that he was able to sell 
it a few years later at a considerable profit. He 
then returned to Denmark and married the 
sweetheart of his early youth, Elizabeth Niel¬ 
sen, who., by the way, had formerly refused 
him. But then he was only a carpenter’s ap¬ 
prentice, now he was a successful journalist; 
besides, the girl was accustomed to the luxuries 
of the well-to-do, for her family was among 
the richest in Ribe; and both were very young, 
and so Jacob must wait—and make good. The 
union was a happy one, but in 1905 Elizabeth 
died and two years later Riis married Mary 
Phillip of St. Louis, for he had returned to 
America soon after his first marriage. 

As a reporter on the New York Tribune and 
later on the New York Sun, Riis took up his 
real work of slum fighting. While attending to- 
his duties as police court reporter he worked 
uay ana night to arouse the people to the need 
of improving living conditions. One of his first 


226 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


campaigns was against the impurity of the city 
water, and it was his fight which finally led to 
the purchase of the Croton watershed to assure 
safe drinking water for New York. 

He brought sunlight to the tenement districts 
by forcing the destruction of rear tenements. 
He entirely cleared Mulberry Bend, one of the 
worst tenement sections in the city, and replaced 
the squalid homes by shady parks. 

Theodore Roosevelt was police commissioner 
of New York when Riis attacked the evils of 
police station lodging houses. He won his 
point, and, incidentally, a strong ally in Mr. 
Roosevelt. He drove bakeshops out of tenement 
basements; he fought for laws abolishing child 
labor, and was largely instrumental in getting 
the passage of the “briefest, wisest and best 
statute on the books of New York state, laying 
down the principle that hereafter ‘no school 
shall be built without adequate playground.’ ” 

Quitting the reporter’s field he continued his 
fight by writing and lecturing. Among the 
products of his pen are: “How the Other Half 
Lives,” “The Children of the Poor,” “The Mak¬ 
ing of an American” (autobiography), “The 
Battle With the Slum,” “Children of the Tene¬ 
ments,” and “The Old Town,” in which he 
'describes the quaint little town of Ribe from 
which he drew his kindly philosophy, his humor 
with the odd mixture of subtlety and simplicity 
so characteristically Danish, and the tenacity 
of purpose that enabled him to pursue evil 
until he demolished it. 

;For many years he had been a sufferer from 
heart trouble and for several months prior to 


JACOB RIIS 


227 


his death he had been an inmate of a sanitar¬ 
ium at Battle Creek, Michigan, from which place 
he was brought to Barre, Massachusetts, where 
he died two weeks later, on May 26, 1914, at 
the age of sixty-five. His wife and son were 
with him at the bedside when he passed away. 
His death was lamented by all who knew him, 
particularly his friend, Col. Roosevelt, who tele¬ 
graphed Mrs. Riis: “I am grieved more than 
I can express. I feel as if I had lost my own 
brother. Jake’s friendship has meant more for 
me than I can ever say. I mourn with you and 
wish I could say anything that would be of 
any comfort to you.” 

But his life work had been accomplished. His 
struggles as an emigrant boy of twenty-one 
gave him a knowledge of the misery that hides 
in back streets,” and his faculty for finding and 
expressing the human element beneath the 
squalor, his agitation in his newspaper, in maga¬ 
zine articles and in his books, as well as from 
the lecture platform, have resulted in many 
excellent reforms, not only in New York but 
throughout the entire land. He gained an inti¬ 
mate knowledge of the lives of the poor by 
personal contact with their environment. He 
was a practical humanitarian, embodying the 
spirit of helpfulness and kindly feeling to a 
remarkable degree. 

History will give Jacob Riis even higher rank 
for his sociological work as times goes on, for 
he laid the foundation of a better understanding 
between the so-called higher and lower classes, 
instilling a closer relationship and sympathy 
between government and people, between man 


228 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


and man, capital and labor. He was the great¬ 
est exponent of his time of the ennobling prin¬ 
ciple of the brotherhood of man, an honor to his 
country and a pride to his countrymen. 




PART II 


Poetry 

(Original Translations) 










































. 








POETIC TRANSLATIONS 


231 


AT THE PARTING HOUR 

“I Afskedets Stund” 

From the Swedish, by Karl Vilhelm Bottiger 

Think now and then, when flow’rs unfold their 
splendors, 

On him for whom life’s blossoms are few, 

On him who oft thy sunny locks remembers, 
Who ne’er forgets thine eyes of azure blue. 

Think now and then, when low the sun is 
sinking 

And fishers slowly to their huts repair, 

On him who ever, ever on thee thinking, 

Is off’ring up for thee his evening prayer. 

Think now and then on him whose heart, dis¬ 
creetly, 

Thine angel-image treasures constantly, 

On him who oft forgets the world completely, 
So that he only may remember thee. 


232 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


WELCOME AND FAREWELL 

From the Swedish, by Alfred Grafstrom, 1790-1870 

Say not to me “welcome” when I’m coming, 
Nor “farewell”, my dear one, when I go, 

For I do not come when I am coming. 

And I do not leave you when I go. 

You are quite mistaken, in decision; 

’Tis my shadow you see disappear; 

It is Duty plucks me from your vision ; 

I myself can never leave you, dear. 

O, dear heart, no matter how I chide you, 

Still my thoughts no longer with me stay; 
Until morning they remain beside you, 

Where they have been all since yesterday. 

Do not say, then, “welcome” when I’m coming, 
Nor “farewell”, my dear one, when I go, 

For I do not come when I am coming, 

And I do not leave you when I go. 


POETIC TRANSLATIONS 


233 


BOYHOOD FANCIES 

There is a charming bit of verse in Swedish (“Nar 
jag blir stor”—ostergren) which tells of a boy who is 
regaling his mother with a prophecy of what he is going 
to do when he becomes a man, of the castle he will build, 
with towers and bridges and park filled with roses; of 
how his mother shall be the queen of this fairyland, and 
that neither want nor fear shall there befall her; that he 
will bear armor and sally forth into the world to gather 
riches and honor, all of which shall be for her enjoy¬ 
ment. He then continues: 

“If I may rule the nation, 

Then every hut shall beam with light, 

And all in lowly station 

Be dressed in raiment bright. 

“I with my sword will banish 

Wild beasts, and fierce hob-goblins slay; 
Dark prison walls shall vanish. 

And all the world be gay.” 

* * * * 


Grow fast, your fancy feeding, 

And build your castle quickly, dear; 
The years will soon be speeding 
When manhood’s days appear. 

True, Time those wings will sever, 

That now so lightly cleave the blue— 

Yet, great was no one ever 

Who has not dreamed like you! 


234 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


WHAT SHALL YOU BRING ME? 

From the Danish, by Carl Newman 

You ask what you shall bring me from the coun¬ 
try of my birth ; 

I’ll tell you what I'm longing for above all 
things on earth: 

Bring me a draft of sea-breath from Denmark’s 
glitt’ring strand— 

’Tis many years, you know, since last I saw the 
dear old land. 

Bring me the peaceful gloaming of its balmy 
evening air, 

When village church-bells ring to rest the toil¬ 
ers everywhere; 

Bring over here the whispers of the woodland’s 
leafy bowers, 

And the singing of the nightingale in mellow 
twilight hours. 

Bring me the glint of waters blue, of ocean belts 
so fair, 

Of the many little sails that glide so still and 
gently there; 

Bring me the clear, sweet music that flowed the 
vales along 

Whene’er the Danish lark arose tow’rd heaven 
with its song. 


POETIC TRANSLATIONS 


235 


Bring me the subtle perfume of a Danish violet, 

And catch for me a burnished ray just as the sun 
has set; 

Bring me the velvet greening of hill and tufted 
lawn, 

And the echoes of the twitterings that greet the 
morning dawn. 

Bring me the fleecy summer sky above the treas¬ 
ured ground, • 

And the shimmer of the evening stars reflected 
in the Sound; 

And bring me fresh from Denmark, from its 
farthest, outmost crag, 

A thrilling snap from out the folds of the Proud 
Old Danish Flag! 



236 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


WHEN STORMS COME SWEEPING FROM 
THE NORTH 

K. JANSON, from the Norwegian) 

When storms come sweeping from the North 
And lash the seas in white, 

Then take and reef the sail, my lad, 

And hold the rudder tight. 

Slip not the halyard though it strains 
In life’s tumultuous gale; 

And fills the boat, bind rudder fact, 

Say not a word, but bail! 

And are you wrapped within a mist 
Of ocean's foam and flood, 

Lift up a fervent psalm and row 
’Til veins gush forth in blood! 

But crush the sides and smite the seas 
Your numb and helpless clod, 

Then bow your head beneath the croft, 

And give your soul to God. 


POETIC TRANSLATIONS 


237 


I CHERISH A FRIEND 
(J e g ejer en Ven) 

Bjornstjerne Bjornson 

I cherish a friend; he whispered just now; 

“God’s Peace,” to my turbulent heart; 

When the sunlight is gone, then always, some 
how, 

This message he seeks to impart. 

He censures me not for my sinful wiles, 

For himself has endured and transgressed, 
And he sits by my side and gently beguiles 
Till he heals up the wounds in my breast. 

He has fostered each hope of my aspirant noon, 
He has never decried when I failed; 

Still smiling, though pale, he is with me, and 
soon 

He shall see how his love has prevailed. 


238 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


MY NOOK AMONG THE MOUNTAINS 

(Min Lilia Vra Bland Bergen) 

Johan Anders Wadman, 1777-1837 

I know a nook ’mid mountain ranges, 

A little nook, my own domain, 

Where vanity no nest may gain, 

Nor innocense its vesture changes. 
Wherever fortune bids me roam, 

For thee I yearn, my little home, 

My nook among the mountains. 

There have I shut a captive treasure 
Within its little narrow close, 

Who sought a life of calm repose, 

No fancy lures to other pleasure: 

And whereso’er fate bids me roam, 

For thee I long, my little home, 

My nook among the mountains. 

I have seen royal institutions 

Like playthings crumble, in the past, 

Yet still my little home stands fast 
And nothing knows of revolutions. 
Wherever favor bids me look, 

To thee I turn, my little nook, 

My nook among the mountains. 

In fortune’s giddy moth to capture 
No longer do I waste my strength; 

For I have learned that still at length . 
But pain rewards expectant rapture. 

No, ample fortune is my lot,— 

My pretty captive in my cot, 

My nook among the mountains. 


POETIC TRANSLATIONS 


239 


A DANISH LANCE* 

Bernard Severin Ingeman, 1789-1862 

In all the countries and kingdoms 

My wand’rings have brought me through, 

I have always fought in the open 
For what I believe is true. 

An eagle surmounted my helmet, 

On my cuirass the cross reposed, 

My shield bore the sinuous lions 
By a circle of hearts enclosed. 

My vizor I always lifted 

When my gauntlet I threw for the fight; 

As “Holger Danske”** they knew me, 

And not as a nameless wight. 

When a Dane in the world would battle, 

Yet hides his name and his face, 

I know he’s a counterfeit spirit 
And refuse him my friendly embrace. 


*The title is ours. **Holger Dan-ske is a semi-his¬ 
torical figure symbolizing the chivalry and heroic spirit 
of Denmark. 



240 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


WE’LL MEET AGAIN 

Victor Rydberg, 1829-1895 

’Twas spring, and the morning light shone down, 
When the Cavalier’s son came through the town. 

In the door of the hut ’neath the linden’s 
shade 

Stood a little rosy-cheeked village maid. 

And the youth said, lightly: “Good morning, 
you!” 

And kissed her fondly before she knew. 

Both were young in life’s morning bliss, 

And fresh as the morning was his kiss. 

“Far must I journey o’er land and main, 

But do not forget me, we’ll meet again.” 

So said he, laughing, and went his way,— 

She never forgot that kiss and day; 

She never forgot his knightly guise, 

Nor the love-light in his handsome eyes; 

How proudly on billowy ringlets sat 
His feather-encircled jaunting hat! 


POETIC TRANSLATIONS 


241 


She grew to womanhood, still to retain 
That parting message—we'll meet again. 

She grew to womanhood, fond and fair 
And listened to many a wooer’s prayer, 

And many suitors did her attend 

But she answered only: “I have a friend.” 

And the vanishing years went on apace, 

But time could not her trust efface. 

Her spring, her summer passed on amain, 

She only smiled,—“we shall meet again.” 

She thought when her autumn years had gone: 
“I know we shall meet again, anon.” 

And dying, she murmured in sweet refrain: 
“I’m so happy, we’ll meet again.” 


THE FIRST KISS 

Herman Satherberg, 1812 

The springtime grasses flash the greenest, 
The first rose always smiles serenest, 

And best the first lark’s song I greet:— 
Your first kiss is by far the best one; 

O, give me that—and then the next one 
Shall be the first one when we meet! 



242 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


I KNOW A GREETING 

Erik Gustaf Geijer, 1783-1847 

NOTE—In Sweden it has long been a custom, upon 
moving into a new home, for the head of the house to 
express some sentiment or greeting designed to prevail 
as a symbol or motto in the household. It was upon 
such an occasion that the following lines were com¬ 
posed. 


I know a greeting far more dear 

Than, world, which thou canst say; 

Its name is “peace”, God’s peace and cheer, 
And for that will I pray. 

Dwell, then, with me, O peace, my all, 

My guest and dearest kin, 

For day is fleeting, shadows fall, 

And night is setting in. 










































































ANNA MARTA LENNGREN 





















POETIC TRANSLATIONS 


245 


THE CASTLE AND THE HUT 
(Slottet Och Kojan) 

Anna Maria Lenngren, 1754-1817 

NOTE—Madam Lenngren was undoubtedly Sweden’s 
most popular woman poet, and as a lyric writer of 
philosophic verse has never been surpassed. The hun¬ 
dredth anniversary of her death was commemorated in 
Stockholm in 1917 in a manner that proved the high 
and universal regard and affection in which she is still 
held by her countrymen, notwithstanding the lapse of 
an entire century. 

I have a lowly cabin, 

But it is mine, and he 
Must stoop in humble fashion 
Who comes to visit me. 


Built low upon the meadow, 

It barely meets the eye, 

But in a park hard by it 
A castle cleaves the sky. 

’Mid pompous show and glamour 
There lives a lord in state. 

My sleep is always restful, 

But such is not his fate. 

A courtier,—more’s the pity— 

He wears a jeweled toy, 

But then for him, poor mortal, 
Life has but little joy. 


246 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


One balmy summer evening 
I sat before my cot, 

When lo, his hounds came bounding 
About my garden plot. 

His grace came by me strolling, 

As I in happy mood 

Kind Providence was praising 
With song of gratitude. 

It was a simple ditty 
I wrote myself—oh, yes— 

In thankfulness to heaven 
For peace and happiness; 

For Fatherly protection, 

For health and daily bread, 

For rest when toil is over 

And conscience free from dread. 

With gun at rest before him 
He stopped to hear my lay; 

I paused, with head uncovered; 

He slowly went his way. 

He breathed a sigh of longing— 

Ha! well I knew his care: 

“Give me your heart of gladness, 

And take my castle there!” 

Then lifted up my vision 
To Him who planned it all: 

Palaces for the lofty 
And happiness for the small. 


POETIC TRANSLATION'S 


247 


THE FLIGHT TO AMERICA 

Christian Winther, 1796-1876 

Christian Winther is famous in Danish literature on 
account of his beautiful songs of nature and his charm¬ 
ing stories, among which may be especially mentioned 
“JEIjortens’ Flugt” (The Stag’s Flight), a cycle pf ro¬ 
mances founded on Danish medieval times. 

In the following poem the translator has endeavored 
to preserve the essential thought and color, as well as 
the metre, of the original, rather than to attempt a 
closely literal translation, which is practically impossible 
in verse, let alone the lack of equivalents in English 
for some of the peculiar idioms of the Danish tongue. 

The somewhat elaborate form of expression employed 
by the children, “Peter and Emil”, is a conceit of the 
poet whereby he not only emphasizes a characteristic 
of facetious writing in general, but ingeniously combines 
it with the lurid imaginings of youth. 

No satire with which the writer is familiar equals, in 
his opinion, this one in its lyric charm, its delicate 
mingling of humor and pathos, and its delightful picture 
of childhood days. 

The time I was but a little lad 
And school had begun its stresses, 

And both of my feet in boots were clad 1 

And pants had replaced my dresses. 

I was not then as passive as now, 

I was arrogant, bold and commanding ; 

A reckless assurance beclouded my brow 
And blunted my understanding. 

One mid-day hour, between twelve and one, 

I was right in the storm of a passion; 

With heart aflame and tears on the run 
I stood in belligerent fashion. 


248 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


At school I had gotten a zero, bare, 

For a lapse in the first declension; 

Mama had chid for a little tear 
In garments I need not mention. 

And the Baker’s girl, once so sweet and smart, 
Now stood there and laughed in the portal; 
She had promised to give me a ginger-bread 
heart,— 

This I saw her presenting to Mortel. 

“Good gracious!” I thought, “this will never do. 

It’s more than my patience will carry! 

For this you shall all most dearly rue 
Who thus my good nature would harry. 

“To America now I will go, and when 
I'm gone you will see me never; 

And where will you get a Peter then? 

Ha!—Peter is gone forever!” 

Astounded, my younger brother stood near, 
His whip and his sled foregoing, 

An expression betwixt a smile and a tear 
On his innocent countenance showing. 

“Now listen, Emil! you shall go, too; 

As brothers together we’ll wander; 

This place is no longer for me or you, 

But the glorious land over yonder!” 

“Is it far?” asked the little fellow, in doubt, 

As he smoothened the folds of his tucker, 
“And maybe my new shoes will not hold out,” 
He opined with a diffedent pucker. 


POETIC TRANSLATIONS 


249 


“Well, it’s farther than out in the country aways 
To Aunt Lizzie’s place, I’ve a notion, 

And in order to get there, for many days 
One has to sail on the ocean. 

■“But once the journey is safely passed 
There is pleasure in store without ending: 

You get for your comfort a mansion vast 
And plenty of money for spending. 

“With silver the horses’ hoofs are shod, 

And they use it for wagon-wheel hooping; 

And golden duckets lie scattered abroad,— 
They are yours for the trouble of stooping. 

“Raisins and almonds grow far and wide, 

On the trees together, so many, 

In great big clusters side by side,— 

And they never cost you a penny! 

“There’s plenty of bon-bons wherever one goes, 
And heaps of chocolate candy; 

With sugar-pellets it hails and snows 
And rains with lemonade, dandy! 

“From morning till night you take your ease, 
And Freedom is yours without measure; 

You expectorate just wherever you please, 

And smoke in the houses at leisure. 

“You loll in rocking-chairs to and fro, 

For there it is always vacation,—• 

It’s a matter of choice if you want to go 
To school just for variation.” 


250 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


“Enough!” cried Emil, “I’m satisfied quite, 

And to start at once I am yearning; 

I have no particular appetite 
For institutions of learning. 

“Now, to fetch my raisin-cookie I’ll go,— 
’Twill help us the journey to weather— 

And there’s the big family Bible, you know 
It was given us both together!” 

* * ❖ 

The Bible clasped in his arms he brought, 
While his mouth was the cookie’s litter;— 

Then we stood for a little in silent thought, 

For the parting moment was bitter. 

Our dear fosterland we were going to quit, 
Would not memory sigh for its pleasures?— 

Then Mama opened his window a bit 

And called out the names of her treasures: 

“Emil and Peter! where-to, I pray, 

With that book in the street, debating? 

Come hurry back home now, right away, 

For Dort’ has the dinner waiting!” 

Thus surprised as together we stood in the 
street, 

Our journey went clean out of question, 

And involuntarily answered our feet 
The mother’s inspiring suggestion. 

As lightning fells the young oak in the dust, 
Her dear voice encountered my ego; 

I drowned my sorrow and found my trust 
In the depths of a bowl of sago. 
























































































































































J. C. S. Welhaven Henrik Wergeland 



POETIC TRANSLATIONS 


253 


Wergeland and Welhaven 


Among* Norway's poetic stars of first magni¬ 
tude none shine with greater luster, and perhaps 
none has found a larger literary clientele among 
their countrymen, than Henrik Wergeland and 
Johan S. C. Welhaven. While both of the same 
native stock and for many years contemporaries 
in the field of inspiring literature, there was a 
wide divergence not only in their style but in 
their mental perspective. Wergeland was a 
controversialist, a politician in the larger sense, 
who by his strenuous indictments laid the foun¬ 
dation for the complete independence of his 
country, and brought about the celebration of 
the 17th of May as a national holiday. He was 
essentially a friend of the common people. 
Among his more pretentious works may be men¬ 
tioned “Joden”, and “Den Engelske Lods”. 

Wergeland’s work is more celebrated, how¬ 
ever, for its virility, its biting force, than for 
beauty of style; hence he may not be placed 
strictly as a lyric poet but rather of the didactic 
and political class. His insistence upon a pure 
Norwegian literature and language as opposed 
to that of the prevelant Danish-Nonvegian 
school brought him frequently into sharp con¬ 
flict with his famous contemporary, Welhaven. 
The latter had the advantage of a superior 



254 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


education and consequent knowledge of classic 
history and verse. Welhaven mercilessly ex¬ 
posed the weaker side of Wergeland’s poetry. 
As a university professor Welhaven naturally 
carried considerable weight in these discussions, 
especially among scholars and critics. His 
poetry is decidedly lyric, and nearly all his 
work, which is not very large, is distinguished 
for beauty and style, among which may be 
mentioned a series of Sonnets entitled “Norges 
Daemring”. 

We publish herein our translation of a poem 
of each of the poets, together with their por¬ 
traits. The verses have been selected as pecul¬ 
iarly charactertistic of the temper and style of 
these two great sons of Noraland. 

FREEDOM OF THE PRESS 

Henrik Wergeland, 1808-1845 
Where thrives there aught that’s good and fair 
And great, by Force? 

The stifled meadow waxes gray; 

The eagle bound, dies on its stay; 

Choke up the stream—whose liquid lay 
Reveals its course— 

And it a poisoned moor will be; 

For nature’s hates—herself so free, 

All Force. 

Shall the soul’s stream, the mind’s swift flight, 
Then suffer Force? 

Shall Truth not radiate its light, 

Shut in its heart, like, all affright, 

Aladdin’s fruit bemoaning quite 
Its dark resource? 


POETIC TRANSLATIONS 


255 


Not so, Press, lift your powerful arm, 
Release the world by your alarm. 
From Force! 


CHILDHOOD MEMORIES 

J. S. C. Welhaven, 1807-1873 

I sat me in the corner 
And hummed a little lay, 

And read a book before me, 

And felt so light and gay. 

Then came upon my vision 
My childhood’s joys and woes 

And many scenes long hidden 
Through memories’ mist arose. 

* * * 

My father in the garden 
Sat watching me at play, 

When passed ’mid bell a-tolling 
A funeral on its way. 

And near the first conveyance 
Two children walked and wept, 

The -one cried out so sorely, 

The other silent kept. 

My father’s face grew solemn, 

He took me up and said: 

“O, thank your God, my darling, 
Your father is not dead.” 


256 TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 

Then through the child’s clear conscience 
There came a cloud of fears, 

And down his cheeks so ruddy 
Flowed free the shining tears. 

Full long my sobs continued, 

While father held me there; 

I prayed for those poor children, 

And in their grief did share. 


* * * 


Now far removed the garden, 
And gone its flowery pave; 
And O, how very distant 
Is now my father’s grave. 

So I sat in the corner; 

The winter evening passed; 
I read, but on the pages 
The tears were falling fast. 






JOHAN LUDVIG RUNEBERG 

























POETIC TRANSLATIONS 


259 


Fanrik Stal 

♦Pronounced “Fenrick Stole”. 


Johan Ludvig Runeberg, 1804-1877 

NOTE—John Ludvig Runeberg was born in Finland 
five years before that portion of Sweden was acquired 
by Russia. While, therefore, the poem which follows 
relates to Finland, it nevertheless breathes the same 
spirit of affection so characteristic of the Swedish peo¬ 
ple when they speak of their “Fosterland”. 

Runeberg’s genius as a poet is unquestionably that 
of the first rank. In nearly all his writings, both verse 
and prose, there runs that vibrant life, that depth of 
feeling and indefinable charm that one meets only in 
the works of a master. 

Perhaps nothing that Runeberg has written excels in 
the qualities noted the poems contained in his book en¬ 
titled “Fanrik St&ls Sagner”, the source of which he ex¬ 
plains in the poem here published in translation, and 
which forms a sort of preplude to the work mentioned. 


To other times my memory veers 
So lightly, when I ponder; 

Still glow the long receded years 
Like friendly stars up yonder. 
Well then, who follows now my train 
To Nasijarvi’s somber main? 

’Twas there quite unforseen I met 
A soldier, years efluent, 

Who owned his fanrik* title yet, 

Though fate had played him truant. 
God knows, then, how it came to be 
That he should live so near to me. 


♦Ensign—Flag-bearer. 




260 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


I then considered that I bore 
A dignified position; 

I was a student sophomore, 

Albeit on condition. 

My board in amplitude was spread; 

The old man broke in need his bread. 

I smoked the “Seal of Gefle” then. 

In meerschaum pipe, effulgent; 

The old man cut his plug-leaf, when 
His means were so indulgent; 

If not, some moss beguiled his soul, 

Within his blackened brier-bowl. 

O time of bliss, O gilded bowers 
Of happiness and pleasure, 

When one is young and student hours 
Make up the day’s full measure— 

And no forebodings menace fate, 

Save that the mustache waxes late! 

How others fared, I cared not, so 
My present joys attended; 

My arm was strong, my cheek aglow, 
My pulse with ardor blended. 

I was so young, so giddy, why, 

No king was e’er as proud as I! 

But fanrik Stal sat in his cot 
Forgotten in the flurry; 

He puffed his pipe and tied his knot 
And let us others scurry. 

Assuredly, with such as he, 

One felt no bond of sympathy. 


POETIC TRANSLATIONS 


261 


It was my keen delight to note, 

Without the least compassion, 

His bending frame, his look; his coat,— 
So odd and out of fashion; 

And most of all, his beetle nose, 

And spectacles devoid of bows. 

I often visited his place; 

Some idle prank abetting; 

It was my joy to watch his face, 

When, wroth, he tore his netting; 

Or, when the needle from his hand 
I got, and made a tangled strand. 

He then would rise and headlong poke 
Me from his little hollow; 

A friendly word, a proffered smoke, 

And peace would quickly follow. 

I came again, and, as before, 

Would play the like proceeding o’er. 

That this old man had seen the day 
When youth spurs on decision; 

That he had passed far on the way 
Beyond my narrow vision, 

I was too wise to see or ken; 

It did not strike my fancy then. 

Nor that he’d stood with sword in hand, 
And poured his. blood unmeasured, 

For love of that same fosterland 
I now so fondly treasured,— 

I was too young, too wild a thing,— 

He fanrik was, I more than king! 


262 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


But how it chanced, my love of sport 
Succumbed to feelings stronger. 

'Twas winter, and the light grew short, 
Although my day seemed longer. 

My life assumed a different trend; 

I thought the day would never end. 

I took the first book that I found, 

The lagging hours to juggle; 

A tale by someone unrenowned, 

Of Finland’s latest struggle,—- 

A lowly volume, by its looks, 

Among the household store of books. 

I brought it to my room, and laid 
Me down, its leaves to fumble, 

When soon on Savolak’s Brigade 
I somehow chanced to stumble. 

I read a line or two, and lo, 

My heart began to throb and glow! 

I saw a people here who chose 
To die, their rights demanding; 

I saw one here who starved and froze, 
Yet conquered notwithstanding. 

My eyes swept o’er the pictured stage, 

I fain would kiss each sacred page. 

In time of ’larm on every hand, 

What courage, mind and sinew! 

How could you, hapless fosterland, 

So dearly loved continue; 

And how with such devotion mark 

A people fed with bread of bark! 


POETIC TRANSLATIONS 


263 


My thoughts a spacious vista reared. 

’Til then a land unbounded, 

A life before my soul appeared 
Whose depths I ne’er had sounded. 
My day sped like a winged leaf; 

O, how my book seem’d all too brief! 

’T\yas finished, and the evening waned; 

My new-found light still burning 
With many questions unexplained 
Within my bosom yearning; 

So many longings to console,— 

I sought the old man, fanrik Stal. 

I found him sitting as before, 

His strands of fiber pleating; 

But right within his cabin door 
I met a sullen greeting. 

It was as though he would have said: 
“Must trouble follow one to bed?” 

But I had other aims by far 
Than now to act unruly: 

“I’ve read of Finland’s latest war, 

And I am Finnish, truly. 

I yearn -for more of this, you see, 
Perhaps you can enlighten me?” 

And as I spoke, the old man gazed 
Up from his work in wonder. 

His eyes betrayed a mind amazed, 

A reason fain to sunder: 

“Well, yes, some facts I could declare, 
If you so wish, for I was there.” 


264 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


I sat me on his straw-bed, calm, 

As he began his story 
Of Dunker’s zeal, of captain Malm, 

Of many deeds of glory. 

His face lit up, his eyes grew bright; 
How handsome he appeared that night! 

He’d seen so many bloody days, 

So many fields contended, 

Not triumphs only, but delays 

Whose wounds time had not mended; 
So much the world would prone forget, 
Lived in his trusty boso'm yet. 

I sat and listened, all intent, 

Each word my mem’ry charted; 

The night was nearly half-way spent, 
When from him I departed. 

He followed to the threshold’s brim 
And grasped the hand I offered him. 


Since then, whene’er my absence grew, 
He seemed quite ’neath the weather. 
We shared our joys, our sorrows, too, 
And smoked the “Seal” together. 

My tone took on a different ring,—' 
But student I, he more than king! 


These memoirs I in song recite, 

This old man’s lips did utter. 

I’ve heard them many a silent night, 
Beside the candle’s flutter. 

They speak so all will understand; 
Receive them, precious fosterland! 


POETIC TRANSLATIONS 


265 


SCANDINAVIAN BELLES-LETTRES 

In the great field of literature there is a branch 
known as Belles-Lettres, or polite writing, in 
which the imagination plays the principal roll. 
This includes poetry, fiction, essays, and history 
distinguished for beauty and style. This branch 
may for convenience be divided into three parts: 
Logic, Ethics, and Esthetics, exemplifying the 
True, the Good, and the Beautiful. 

It is in this classification that I wish to treat 
of literature, particularly as expressed in the 
three Scandinavian languages, and to point out 
what seems to me to be the peculiar property 
of each. 

In Danish belles-lettres the ethical element 
seems to predominate, in Swedish the logical, 
and in Norwegian the esthetic, while, of course, 
all three partake more or less of all these quali¬ 
ties. 

This difference may be due to climate and 
natural surroundings as well as to social and 
political environment. Denmark, for example, 
does not in its physical aspect present the 
grandeur of Norway’s scenery, while Sweden 
is not pronouncedly either mountainous or pas¬ 
toral. Again, Denmark, closely knit, small in 
extent and easy of access on all sides, has pro¬ 
duced a social environment, and hence an ethical 
one more distinctly characteristic than the 
others. Its frequent invasion by foreign foes 
has also contributed in a large measure to this 
quality, in drawing the people together for 
common defense. 


266 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


Norway, owing to its rugged surface and 
deeply indented coast, has less of‘this quality 
owing to the isolation of its social members, 
but by the wonderful law of compensation which 
tends to balance all things, it has exalted itself 
more conspicuously than the others in its de¬ 
scriptive lore and in that spirit fostered by the 
wild majesty of its habitat—the love of nature’s 
freedom. 

Sweden, long master of its immediate destiny, 
immune to a great degree from external strife, 
the aggressor rather than the defender in its 
exploits at arms, and plentiously provided with 
diversified products of the soil, has developed 
the philosophic spirit to a remarkable extent, 
and its polite literature is therefore deeply 
tinged with the reflective and subjective moods. 

The distinctions pointed out are perhaps best 
instanced in the field of poetry. In the national 
anthem of Denmark—“Der er et yndight Land”, 
the country is compared with “Frejas Sal”, 
a place of conjugal felicity, and its mail-clad 
champions of old, its noble women, lovely maid¬ 
ens and brave young men, are the principal 
features of the piece. In Norway’s national 
song—“Ja, vi elsker dette Landet”, the breath¬ 
ing spirit is the rise of the land above its nat¬ 
ural obstacles,—“som det stiger frem, furet, 
veirbidt over vandet med de tusen hjem”, and 
the love of its people for the poetic atmosphere 
of its surroundings,—“den saganat som senker, 
dr0mme paa vor jord”. In the Swedish national 
hymn—“Vart land, vart land, vart fosterland, 
ljud hogt, o dyra ord!” the reflective and sub- 


POETIC TRANSLATIONS 


267 


jective are the dominant notes,—“Vart land ar 
fattig, skall sa bli for den som guld begar”. 

Coming to the poetry of the people com¬ 
monly called folk-lore the same special charac¬ 
teristics appear. In the Norwegian the best, as 
it seems to me, is that which is descriptive of 
nature, as when Munch says: 

Det er en vinterlig Sneveirsdag, 

Med Taushed og S^ndagsduft. 

Hvor taette falder de hvide Flag 
Igjennem den stille Luft. 

Or, as in the “Sunset” described by Jensen: 

Nu glider Solen ved Fjeldet ned, 

Nu gaar den til hvile i Boven; 

Der er en drjzfmmende, salig Fred 
Paa Bjerg, i Dal og i Skoven. 

Og som den synker, en Straaleglans 
Den spreder over det hele; 

Det er dens funklede Minderskrans, 

Det er dens Eftermaele. 

The most celebrated is perhaps the pictur¬ 
esque lyric by Munch; and for the benefit of 
those who do not understand the language I 
will endeavor to give a translation: 


The Bridal Journey in Hardanger 

There quivers a glimmering summer air, 

Warm over Hardanger-fjord’s fountains, 

Where high ’gainst the heavens so blue and so 
fair 


26S 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


Are tow’ring the rugged mountains; 

The glaciers are bright, the hillside is green, 

All nature responds with beauty serene,— 

And see! on the blue waters riding, 

A bridal procession is gliding. 

Danish poetry, as has been suggested, is per¬ 
meated with human affection, the endearing 
domestic relations, mother’s love, and the in¬ 
nocence of childhood. The “Dying Child”, by 
Hans Christian Andersen, is undoubtedly Den¬ 
mark’s masterpiece in this regard. It is so in¬ 
tensely pathetic, so nationally domestic, that 
its adequate translation seems impossible. Can 
these lines be fully expressed in English? 

Hvorfor trykker Du saa mine Haender? 

Hvorfor laegger Du din kin Kind til min? 

Den er vaad, og dog som lid den braender,— 

Moder, jeg vil al Tid vaere din. 

Men saa maa Du ikke laenger sukke; 

Graeder Du, saa graeder jeg med Dig. 

O!—jeg er saa traset, maa 0jet lukke. 

Moder—se! nu kysser Englen mig! 

We find this love of childhood expressed in 
many ways by the Danish poets. How beauti¬ 
ful is this stanza by Baggesen: 

Der var en Tid, da jeg var meget Idle, 

Min hele Krop var knap en Alen lang; 

S0dt, naar jeg denne taeenker, Taarer trille, 
Og derfor tasnker jeg den mangen Gang. 

If I remember correctly this passage has been 
translated by Longfellow as follows: 


POETIC TRANSLATIONS 


269 


There was a time when I was very small; 
When my whole frame was scarce an ell in 
height. 

Of as I recall it, tears will fall, 

And therefore I recall it with delight. 


The same idea is expressed by an American 
poet, whose name I do not remember, when he 
says: 

Two ducks on a pond, a green bank beyond; 
The bright skies of spring, gay birds on the 
wing; 

Oh, what a little thing, to remember for years, 
To remember with tears! 

Examples of Swedish poetry showing the dis¬ 
tinctive property to which I have referred, are 
many. The language itself is aptly fitted for 
the expression of abstract thought. It is clear, 
resonant and profound. Its belles-lettres has 
been enriched by two of the world’s great mas¬ 
ters of style,—Runeberg and Tegner. Even in 
the descriptive mood, however, the objective 
yields to the subjective in some of the best 
specimens, as, for example, when Runeberg de¬ 
picts the lingering twilight hours of the North¬ 
land : 

Det var en kvall, £n nordisk sommarkvall, 
en kvall, da solen icke gar till hvila 
vid jordens barm, men kysser henne blott, 
ock skyndar ater up till dagens frojder. 


270 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


It was a night, a Northern summer night. 

A night when the glowing Sun goes not to rest 
In Earth’s fair bosom, but only kisses her 
And straightway hurries back to join the festive 
Day. 

This quality is often mixed with the most deli¬ 
cate humor, as when Tegner sings, even in his 
tragic poem, “Axel,”— 

Det var en afton. Ovallen lag 
och dromde pa sin badd i vester, 
och tysta som Egyptens prester 
begynte stjernorna sitt tag. 

Elias Sehlstedt, although given to verse of the 
lighter vein, cannot refrain from frequent phi¬ 
losophizing,— 

Vad ar vart liv? Det endast ar minuten, 
som far forbi och sedan ar forfluten. 

Den kommer och den far likson en pust. 

Vad ar en pust? Ja, det ar knuten just. 

A free translation of this last would be some¬ 
thing like this: 

What is our life? It is the minute fleeting, 

A wayfarer with but a moment’s greeting. 

It comes and goes, just liks a passing gust. 
What is a gust? Well, that’s the problem, just! 

“Sven Dufva,” by Runeberg, is perhaps the 
best known poem of the Swedish people outside 
of their own country. Its leading theme is the 
exaltation of the heart above the intellect when 


POETIC TRANSLATIONS 


271 


the quality of patriotism is most concerned. It 
tells the story of a soldier boy whom it had 
been the custom to ridicule in camp because of 
his light-headedness, his lack of wit,—in short, 
because he was regarded as foolish. One day. 
being placed with a few comrades as an outpost 
to guard a bridge-head, the enemy came sud¬ 
denly upon the little group who fought to the 
last man hoping to hold the bridge until the 
arrival of reinforcement. As help arrived in 
sight of the affray, Sven Dufva was observed 
holding the bridge alone, all the others having- 
been shot down. Later, after the enemy had 
been dispersed by the native troops headed by 
General Sandels, the poor, half-witted boy could 
not be found, until his lifeless body was dis¬ 
covered under the bridge-head, where it was 
noticed by the red-dyed grass near his bosom 
that a bullet has pierced his heart. The eulogy 
pronounced by General Sandels over his pros¬ 
trate form is undoubtedly one of the finest ex¬ 
amples of philisophic metaphor to be found in 
any language. 

Numerous translations of this great poem 
have been attempted, but none seem to preserve 
the true, local coloring of the original. As each 
student of the language is at liberty to make a 
trial, I will conclude my remarks with a version 
of the closing lines which I trust will furnish 
in the English language some idea of the under¬ 
lying motive and beauty of the original. 

“That Bullet knew just where to go; 

So much must granted be”; 

Thus spoke the saddened general, 


272 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


“It knew much more than we. 

It left his brain untouched, for that 
Was faint and scant at best, 

And sought a place of greater worth— 

His noble, gallant breast.” 

And through the army, far and wide, 

Those words took rapid flight, 

And all agreed with one accord 
That Sandels’ view was right. 

“His mind was dull, was meant,” they said, 
“And played a simple part; 

But though his head was weak and poor, 

He had a priceless heart.” 





SCANDINAVIAN LYRICS 


273 


SCANDINAVIAN LYRICS 


There is a peculiar charm in the lyric poetry 
of Scandinavia, in that not only is the tune or 
rythm admirably adapted to the theme, but in 
many instances, instead of the emphatic, quaint 
or emotional stress common in most lyrics, 
we find moral sentiment mingled with philos¬ 
ophy to such a degree that the impression! the 
salient idea remains fixed in the memory long 
after the song has been forgotten. The aim 
seems to be to point a moral more especially 
than to adorn a tale, to reach the meditative and 
reflective recesses of thought, rather than those 
of the imaginative or spectacular. 

While appeals to the heart are not wanting,— 
in fact, they are very often in evidence in one 
form or another, the heart-songs of the North¬ 
land accentuate rather those qualities which em¬ 
body the heroic virtues or the esthetic aspect of 
life. Along with these properties of Scandi¬ 
navian verse there is also discernable a spirit 
of self-denial, embodying the philosophy of con¬ 
tentment and compensation, or a sort of flouting 
at fate—• 

“I care not fortune what you may deny; 

You cannot rob me of free nature’s grace, 
You cannot shut the windows of the sky 

Through which Aurora shows her smiling 
face.” 

In the realm of humor, it is rather the lighter 
and more subtle vein that predominates, a sort 



274 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


of roguish inuendo, often capricious, and a radi¬ 
cal diversion from the usual stress of speculative 
themes. It differs from the humor of other 
nationalities in that it is less obvious, although 
none the less naive or grotesque, reaching the 
climax by inference in preference to direct con¬ 
clusion. While these considerations hold good 
with most humor, especially when combined with 
wit,; that of Scandinavian structure seems to 
reach its object (laughter) more frequently With¬ 
out the sting of the latter element. 


THE SECOND EVENING 

Translated from H. C. Andersen’s “Picture Book With¬ 
out Pictures” 

(Billedbog Uden Billeder) 

“It was yesterday,” the Moon informed me,* 
“that I peeked into a little yard entirely en¬ 
closed by houses; there sat a hen with eleven 
chicks. A charming little girl frolicked about 
them. The hen klucked and spread affrighted 
her wings over her tender brood. Then came 
the girl’s father. He scolded; and I glided away 
without giving the matter any further thought. 


*These sketches were written while Andersen was 
living in a garret, before fame and fortune had begun 
to smile upon him; and it was the nightly visits of the 
Moon, briefly beaming upon him through his dormer 
window, that inspired the 'production of these charming 
little stories, the precursors of his popularity as a chil¬ 
dren’s poet. 




THE SECOND EVENING 


275 


But this evening—it is only a few minutes ago 
—I again looked down into the same yard. 
Everything was quite still, but presently came 
the little girl. She stole slowly up to the 
chicken-house, lifted the latch and glided in to 
the hen and the little chickens. They cried 
loudly and fluttered about and the little girl 
sprang after them. I saw it all plainly, for I 
peeked through a hole in the wall. I became 
quite angry at the child and was pleased when 
the father came and scolded more violently 
than yesterday. She bent her head backward—- 
there were large tears in the blue eyes. ‘What 
are you doing here?’ he inquired. She wept: 
‘I wanted/ she said, ‘to go and kiss the hen 
and ask her to forgive me for yesterday, but I 
did not dare to. tell you!’ 

“And the father kissed the sweet innocent on 
the forehead. 

“I kissed her on the eyes and mouth,’’ said 
the Moon. 



276 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


THREE AMERICAN-SCANDINAVIAN 
POETS 

(Friends of the Author.) 

JOHAN G. R. BANfLR, widely known among 
his countrymen as “Asabarden,” through his 
masterful epics of the various subjects and 
themes of Norse Mythology, was born in Mo- 
heda socken, Smaland, Sweden, February 5th, 
1861, and resided during his boyhood in Varm- 
land, Vestmanland, Dalarna and Halsingland. 
at which latter place he began his first efforts 
to use the poetic talent of which he evinced 
unmistakable signs as early as at the age of 
seven years, and to acquire a good education 
under the tuition of a learned savant named 
N. Nordenmark, and later under the direction 
of one Qwarnstrom, “kyrkoherde,” at Segerstad, 
At the age of twelve he had the honor of see¬ 
ing his first verses in the public print. 

In his young manhood years he became bv 
turns an infantryman, an artilleryman, and a 
trooper in the Swedish army. 

Brother Baner came to this country in 1885, 
and since the year 1893 has lived in Ironwood, 
Michigan, where he has engaged in the real 
estate business. 

As he himself puts it, he has spent about two- 
thirds of his time in the worship of the Muse, 
oftenest in versification of the “Sagas,” and is 
perhaps the best informed in that field of any 
man now living. Among his published works 
may be mentioned the following in the Swedish 


AMERICAN SCANDINAVIAN POETS 


277 


language: “Opiater och Granater,” “Loke,” 

“Harmod,” “Iduna,” “Bragemal,” and a work 
still in manuscript entitled, “Ragnarok” (Twi¬ 
light of the Gods”), which is now on the 
eve of publication. Among his verses written 
and published in the English language may be 
mentioned “Diagrams,” “Runes ♦ and Ripples,” 
and “Flakes.” Besides this list might be in¬ 
cluded a great many short poems, most of 
which have appeared from time to time in the 
leading Swedish papers and periodicals of the 
country. 

His style is remarkable for its virility and 
the absolute command of the Swedish language 
—itself one of the most expressive mediums. 
Even in English the forcefulness of his utter¬ 
ance is at once apparent. Elbert Hubbard called 
him “The Word Wizard,” and this coming from 
one who was himself a master of forceful ex¬ 
pression, must be taken at its literal value. As 
another has expressed it, his imagination is 
almost riotous in its luxuriance; his vocabulary 
amazes with its resources, his metrical feats 
are almost bewildering, and his sense of har¬ 
mony is admirable. 


JULIUS B. BAUMANN was born in a small 
fishers' village in the neighborhood of Vads0, 
Norway, on December 25th, 1869. His grand¬ 
mother on the paternal side was a stanch 
matron of Swedish peasant stock from “Da- 
larne.” His paternal grandfather was of Ger- 
man-Danish descent and held a position in the 
Treasury department of the Norwegian govern¬ 
ment. The mother was of pure Norwegian heri- 



278 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


tage, of the frugal, sterling quality. Julius was 
given a good education notwithstanding the 
comparative poverty of his parents, after which 
he was put to his father’s trade as a fisherman 
at the Finmarken and Lofoten fisheries. In his 
younger days the father was a ship’s pilot and 
as such plowed all the “seven seas,” including 
the arctic regions. 

Mr. Baumann came to this country in the 
spring of 1891, and worked as a woodsman in 
the forests of Wisconsin and Minnesota for 
eleven years. Thereafter he engaged in the 
mercantile business both as clerk and proprie¬ 
tor. In 1912 he was elected to the office of 
Register of Deeds for Carlton County, Minne¬ 
sota, and re-elected in 1914. 

The poet has published two compilations of 
his writings, the last of which, “Fra Vidderne,” 
gained for him recently a prize from an organi¬ 
zation devoted to the appreciation of current 
Norwegian literature, namely, Hon. O. M. Ole- 
son’s Literary Prize for 1916. 

He is a member of “Nordlandslaget of Amer¬ 
ica,” and poetic editor and “saga” writer of 
the Magazine “Nord-Norge”; is a contributor 
to Nordmanforbundet, Det Norske Selskap, 
American Scandinavian Foundation, The Amer¬ 
ican Geographical Society, Den Norsk-Danske 
Pressforening, and the Calendrical and Chrono¬ 
logical Society of America. 


ERNST SKARSTEDT has for many years 
been recognized by Swedish people of literary 
taste, and that includes the great majority of 
them, as one of the foremost Swedish American 



AMERICAN SCANDINAVIAN POETS 


279 


journalists in this country who may be classed 
among the literati. Having resided in the 
United States for the last forty years* with 
the exception of two short sojourns’to his na¬ 
tive land, his style has a certain American auro 
that gives it added charm, especially to-read¬ 
ers m this country. 

He came first into prominence as a member 
of the editorial staff of the “Swedish American” 
of Chicago, and later of the “Swedish Tribune? 
of the same city. In recent years he has en¬ 
gaged in journalistic work in Seattle and other 
points on the Pacific Coast. Naturally of a 
nomadic disposition, with a fondness for the out- 
of-doors and change of scene incompatible with 
work of a sedentary nature, his incumbency 
of editorial chairs has been frequently inter¬ 
rupted, but his pen has not therefore been idle, 
as witness the brilliant narrative of his journal¬ 
istic career entitled, “Vagabond och Redaktor,” 
which he published in 1914. 

We have read this book with great pleasure, 
not only for its fund of information concerning 
personages and events with which we are more 
or less familiar—notably his sketch of that sin¬ 
gularly interesting character, Marcus Thrane, 
whom we knew personally—but, paraphrasing 
the term used by Mr. Skarstedt in reference to 
our own writings in English, for his “exceedingly 
beautiful” Swedish. 

In addition to his literary and journalistic 
talents, Mr. Skarstedt has to a marked degree— 
what all good writers must perforce have, 
hence their comparative rarity—a keen sense of 
humor and an exquisite poetic instinct, so that 


280 TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 

one may often read him at length with both 
laughter and pathos alternating like the mirrors 
and eddies of a wayside stream. 

A friend of the common people, none have 
more keenly rebuked the shams of hypocrisy, 
the machinations of graft or the cringing abne¬ 
gations of snobbery; and, however his philos¬ 
ophy of life may not always tally with one's 
convictions, his refreshing candor and freedom 
from spleen often compels admiration whether 
one agrees with him or not. 




PART 111 


Mythology 




ODIN 













MYTHOLOGY—VIKING LORE 


283 


Viking Lore 


ODIN AND THE EDDAS 

The records of Norse Mythology are con¬ 
tained in two collections called the Eddas, of 
which the oldest is poetry and dates back to 
the year 1056, the more modern or prose Edda 
dating from 1640. The elder Edda consists 
of thirty-seven poems and like the prose Edda 
treats of Gods, legends and Scandinavian wars. 
The word “Edda” means “great-grandmother”’, 
and probably refers to the stories told by the 
grandmothers to the children. The poetic Edda 
is said to have been the work of Saemond the 
Wise, while that of the prose Edda was written 
by Snori Sturlason. Both were famous scholars 
of Iceland. 

Asgard is the name of the abode of the gods 
to which access was gained by crossing the 
bridge. Bifrost (the rainbow). It consists of 
golden and silver palaces, the most beautiful of 
which is Valhalla, the residence of Odin, the 
father of the gods. When seated on his throne 
Odin overlooks all heaven and earth. Upon 
his shoulders perch the ravens, Hugin and 
Munin, signifying Memory and Reflection. They 
are his private messengers and fly every day 
over the world and returning report to him in 
whispers all they have seen and heard. At his 
feet lie his wolves, Geri and Freki, to whom 



284 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


Odin gives all the meat that is set before him, 
for he himself stands in no need of food, mead 
being for him both meat and drink. Odin in¬ 
vented the Runic characters, by which the 
Norns of Fate engrave their prophesies upon a 
metal shield. Odin is sometimes called Alfadur 
(All-father), but his name is often used in a 
way that shows that the early Scandinavians 
had an idea of a deity superior to Odin, of a 
being uncreated and eternal. 

Odin not only invented Poetry but also favors 
History, called the Saga. He is the embodiment 
of Wisdom, for the possession of which he 
sacrificed one of his eyes at Mimir’s Well. In 
his desire to collect as many heroes as possible 
Odin organized a large company of warlike 
maidens called the Valkyrior. These mounted 
upon horses and armed with helmets, shields 
and spears sally forth down to every battlefield 
to make choice of the brave who shall be slain, 
hence they were called “Choosers of the slain.” 
When they ride forth on their errand their 
armor sheds a strange, irridescent light which 
flashes up over the northern skies, making what 
men call the Aurora Borealis or Northern 
Lights. 

Odin had two sons, Thor and Balder, by his 
wife Frigga or Freya; the principal attribute of 
Thor is Strength, that of Balder Goodness and 
Beauty. Thor is the god of Thunder, Balder 
the god of Sunshine and Verdure. The Eddas 
tell many stories of the exploits of the great 
thunder-god, most of which are allegorical ref¬ 
erences to the forces of nature and form the 
basis for much of the classic poetry of Scan- 


MYTHOLOGY—VIKING LORE 


285 


dinavia. The worship of these three, Odin, 
Thor and Balder, representing the great tenets 
Wisdom, Strength and Beauty, lies at the very 
foundation of the pre-Christian religion of the 
early children of the North. 


THE CREATION 

Ages before the earth was made there existed 
two worlds, Niflheim (the nebulous world), far 
to the north, and Muspelheim (the fire world), 
far to the south. Between these was Ginunga- 
gap (the yawning gap). In the middle of 
Niflheim arose the spring Hvergelmer, from 
which flowed twelve ice-cold streams, the rivers 
Elivagar, of which Gjol was situated nearest 
Hel-gate. Muspelheim was so hot that only 
those indigenous to it could live there. In its 
midst sat Sutr, guarding its entrance with his 
flaming sword. When the rivers Elivagar had 
flowed far from their source the venom in them 
hardened and became ice. From the combined 
action of the warm currents from the south and 
the cold blasts from the north, mingled with the 
ice and venom, fog and frost were produced 
which soon quickened into drops, and formed in 
the ice the likeness of a man, whose name was 
Ymer, but the frost giants called him Aurgelmer. 
Ymer was not a god, but a very bad mortal. 
When he slept he broke into a sweat and from 
his left armpit waxed a man and a woman, who 



286 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


peopled the earth with mortals, and one of his 
feet begat a son, from whom descends the 
frost-giants. 

The fog, ice and venom also produced a cow, 
named Audhumbla. Four milk rivers ran from 
her, whereby she fed Ymer. She lived by lick¬ 
ing the ice, which was salt. The first day that 
she licked the ice, or rime stones, there came 
out from them a man’s hair, the second day 
revealed a man’s head, and the third day all the 
man appeared. His name was Buri. He was 
fair of face, great and mighty. He begat a son 
named Bor who took for wife a woman named 
Bestla, daughter of the giant Bolthorn, and they 
had three sons, Odin, Vile, and Ve, the rulers 
of heaven and earth. These three slew the 
giant Ymer. From his blood they made the 
seas and waters, from his flesh the land, from 
his bones the mountains, from his hair the for¬ 
ests, and from his teeth, jaws and bits of broken 
bone they made the stones and pebbles. From 
his skull they formed the vaulted heavens over 
the earth and set a dwarf at each corner, called 
East, West, North and South. They placed the 
sparks and flakes of light which they caught 
from Muspelheim in the heavens to give light 
to the world. Then they threw and scattered 
Ymer’s brains in the air and made the melan¬ 
choly clouds. 

The gods did not create the heavenly bodies, 
they merely formed them from the sparks of 
Muspelheim. 


MYTHOLOGY—VIKING LORE 


287 


CHARACTERISTICS OF THE VIKINGS 


Among the most prominent characteristics of 
the ancient Vikings was their strong individ¬ 
uality; their love of freedom and desire for per¬ 
sonal independence amounted to a. passion. 
For this they endured the frigid winters of the 
north and the torrid summers of the south. The 
arch. I of heaven was! a sufficient roof, the forest 
an ample habitation and wild beasts.:adequate 
companionship, so that their freedom was not. 
curtailed. For this boon no sacrifice was too 
great, not even life itself.' The same passion 
for freedom still exists in the Scandinavian race; 
and constitutes their richest inheritance from 
their Viking ancestors. 

Another Viking characteristic was Courage: 
War was their profession. They would rather 
fight than work, “For they deemed it a disgrace 
to acquire by sweat what they might obtain by 
blood.” They were so noted by their fearless¬ 
ness that “they conquered by the very terror 
of their names.” 

• Other striking qualities were Firmness and 
Determination. “To a true Viking, no defeat 
was final; failure only meant delay; he must 
overcome all opposition, conquer every obsta¬ 
cle, defy every difficulty. Mountains, oceans, 
deserts, must not hinder his purpose.” 

But besides these traits of valor the Viking, 
although a pagan worshiper of Odin, possessed 




288 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


ethical and moral notions of a high standard. 
While revengeful and merciless at times, he was 
Honest and Truthful. “He had a sense of 
honor which led him to sacrifice his life rather 
than his word.” He would keep his promise, 
irrespective of whether it was given to a friend 
or an enemy, and with all his ferocity he was 
kind and merciful to the weak and those who 
sought his protection. 

Deception and cunning were intolerable to 
him. If he could not subdue an enemy he 
would enter into a brotherly union with him 
which was the most sacred pact of which he 
could conceive. It was effected by opening the 
veins of each other’s arms and by contact mix¬ 
ing their blood together, accompanied by an 
oath that they would share each other’s joys 
and sorrows through life and avenge each 
other’s death. 

Another essential of the religion of these 
Northmen was Hospitality, a law which, though 
unwritten, compelled everyone to entertain, 
without charge or limit of time, either a friend 
or an enemy who should ask or be in need. As 
such, a guest need fear no harm or imposition. 

The Vikings had a higher respect for women 
than any other nation of heathen times. While 
they often bought their wives and as often 
fought for them, they were always treated with 
dignity and respect, as free beings, not slaves. 
“The men were attached to home and family, 
and, of course, enjoyed the wine and the feast.” 

While it is true that civilization has changed, 
and with it customs, habits of thinking and 
ideas of right and wrong, yet the Scandinavians 


MYTHOLOGY—VIKING LORE 


289 


of today inherit much of the better parts of 
their Viking progenitors of a thousand years 
ago. 

Death to the Vikings was a glorious thing, if 
met honorably and bravely. They had a heaven 
in Valhalla and a hell in Naastrand. Immor¬ 
tality was preserved as a faint idea, for while 
Odin’s Valhalla is in heaven, Odin himself is 
not the highest god; Muspelheim is situated 
above Asaheim, and in the former is Gimle, 
where reigns a God who is mightier than Odin, 
the God whom none ventured to name. 

This old religion embodied principles which 
tended to make its votaries brave, independent, 
honest, just, charitable, prudent, temperate, and 
liberty-loving. It recognized depravity in hu¬ 
man nature calling for struggle against natural 
desire and forbearance toward the weak. A 
strict adherence to oaths and promises, devotion 
to a tried friend, war and death for the im¬ 
placable enemy. 

Respect for old age, hospitality, liberality and 
charity to the poor; temperance in gratifying 
the senses as well as in the exercise of power;, 
contentment and cheerfulness, modesty and po¬ 
liteness; a desire to win the goodwill of others, 
to be surrounded with a steadfast circle of 
devoted kinsmen, and a respectful treatment of 
the bodies of the dead. 

To the Vikings we are indebted for the names 
of four days in the week. Tuesday (originally 
Tyrsday), from the war god Tyr. Wednesday 
(originally Wodinsdag), from the god of wis¬ 
dom, Odin or Woden. Thursday (originally 
Thorsdag), from Thor, the mighty god of. 


290 * TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 

strength and husbandry, and Friday (Freydag), 
from Frey, the god of rain and sunshine. 

Sunday and Monday (Moonsday) are taken 
from the heavenly bodies, as indicated by the 
names themselves, and are probably of Druid- 
ical origin, while Saturday (Saturnsday) was 
named by the Romans after Saturn, the father 
of the Olympian gods. 

Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Iceland held 
to the old religion of the Vikings until about 
the middle of the eleventh century. 


THE LANDVAETTIR 

The “Landvaettir” were supposed to watch 
over and protect various parts of the country. 
Their presence was deemed of such importance 
that an old law of Iceland (framed about 930) 
began with a provision relating to them. It 
enacted that “men should not have ships with 
heads on them, or if they did, they should re¬ 
move them before they came in sight of land, 
and not approach the shores with gaping heads 
or yawning snouts by which the landvaettir 
might be scared away.” 








/ 



THOR 


> 






MYTHOLOGY—VIKING LORE 


293 


ORIGIN OF THOR’S HAMMER 


Thor’s wife, Sif, had a magnificent head of 
long hair, reaching to her feet. Loki, bent on 
mischief, cut it off one night while she was 
asleep. Thor immediately surmised who perpe¬ 
trated the outrage and having caught him, pro¬ 
ceeded to strangle him almost to death, when 
Loki promised that if his life was spared he 
would procure for Sif a new head of hair more 
beautiful and luxuriant than the first. Thor 
thereupon let the traitor go. Loki crept down 
to Svart-alfaheim and begged the dwarf Dvalin 
to fashion not only the precious hair, but a 
present for Odin and Frey, whose anger he 
wished also to appease. The dwarf soon made 
the spear Gungnir, which never failed of its aim, 
and the ship Skidbladnir, which was so elastic 
that it could be folded up and thrust into one’s 
pocket. Lastly he spun the finest golden thread 
from which he fashioned the required hair for 
Sif, declaring that as soon as it touched her 
head it would grow fast and there become alive. 
Loki was so pleased that he dubbed the son of 
Ivald the most clever of smiths. Brock, hearing 
this and being jealous, declared that his brothei 
Sindri could produce three objects which would 
surpass those Dvalin had made. Loki imme¬ 
diately challenged this and wagered his head 
against Brock’s on the result. 

Sindri, apprised of the wager, accepted Brock’s 
offer to blow the bellows, warning him that he 



294 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


must work persistently if he wished to succeed. 
The result was the production, first, of an enor¬ 
mous wild boar called Gullin-bursti on account 
of its golden bristles. This boar had the power 
of flight as well as great fleetness of foot. Next 
there came forth from the forge the magic ring 
Draupnir, from which nine similar rings dropped 
every ninth night. Now a lump of iron was 
cast into the flames, whereupon Loki fearing lest 
he would lose the wager as well as his head, 
changed himself into a gadfly and stung Brock 
above the eye while he was vigorously plying 
the bellows, causing him to stop to wipe away 
the blood that streamed down his face from 
the wound. Sindri uttered a cry of despaii 
when he drew his work out of the fire, for 
the hammer he had fashioned had too short a 
handle. Brock, however, felt sure of winning 
and set off with Loki for Asgard, where he gave 
the ring Draupnir to Odin, the boar Gullin- 
bursti to Frey and presented the hammer 
“Mjdiner” to Thor. Loki then gave the spear 
Gungnir to Odin, the ship Skidbladnir to Frey 
and the golden hair to Thor, but although the 
hair immediately grew upon Sif’s head and was 
declared more beautiful than her former locks 
had been, the gods decreed that Brock had won 
the wager, for the hammer Mjoiner, in Thor’s 
hands, would prove invaluable against the frost 
giants at Ragnarok—the battle or twilight of 
the gods. 

Wishing, of course, to save his head, Loki 
fled but was soon overtaken by Thor, who 
brought him back and handed him over to 
Brock, telling the latter, however, that although 


MYTHOLOGY—VIKING LORE 


295 


Loki's head was rightfully his, the wager did 
not include the neck, and therefore he must not 
injure that portion of Loki’s anatomy.* But as 
Loki’s head was his, Brock proceeded to sew 
the arch deceiver’s lips together, using an awl 
to pierce the flesh, and had the satisfaction of 
not only seeing the villain writhe in pain, bu{ 
also of closing his mouth for some time and 
thus depriving him of his propensity for telling 
falsehoods, for Loki was the very prince of liars. 

The form in which Thor’s Hammer was com¬ 
monly presented often led to its association with 
the mark of the Christian cross. At a festival 
in Norway in the year 952, Earl Sigurd gave 
the first toast to Odin, and after drinking from 
the horn handed it to King Hakon, who was 
a Christian, and who, before drinking, made 
the sign of the cross over it. The Vikings 
present vigorously protested and for a moment 
open violence portended, when Earl Sigurd suc¬ 
ceeded in pacifying them by explaining that 
the King had simply followed the custom of 
their ancestors and had made the “sign of the 
hammer” over the horn before partaking of its 
contents. The ingenuity and tact shown by the 
Earl in this incident would do credit to some 
of the best diplomats of later and more en¬ 
lightened times. 


*G'ompare the Trial scene in Shakespeare’s “Mer¬ 
chant of Venice”, Act IV, Scene I. 



TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


296 


THE ABDUCTION OF IDUNA 


The ancient religion of our early ancestors 
commonly known as Norse Mythology, is filled 
with beautiful allusions to the processes of na¬ 
ture, not by direct recital but by symbolisms, 
metaphors and allegories, and these are often 
so hidden that their precise interpretation is 
often impossible. But in the story of the ab¬ 
duction of Iduna (or Idun) the reference to the 
visible working of nature is clear. 

Loke,* the evil one, once slew an ox to appease 
his hunger, but found to his surprise that he 
could not cook the flesh owing to the fact that 
the water would not boil in the kettle. Sud¬ 
denly he heard a noise in the air and looking up 
beheld an enormous eagle poised above him. 
After a short parley with what Loke well knew 
was the frost giant Thjasse in disguise, a battle 
took place between them resulting in Loke 
becoming caught on the pole with which he at¬ 
tacked the giant and dragged by the latter over 
the rough ground until he begged for mercy. 
Thjasse promised to release him only on one 
condition, that he should bring to the giant the 
fair Iduna with her apples out of Asgard, to 
tvhich Loke consented after being bound by a 
solemn oath. 

On his return to Asgard Loke told Iduna that 
in a forest near the celestial residence he had 


*Also written “Loki”. 




MYTHOLOGY—VIKING LORE 


297 


found apples which were of much better quality 
and flavor than her own, and asked her to 
accompany him and make a comparison of the 
fruit. Her curiosity aroused, she consented, but 
no sooner had they arrived in the forest when 
Thjasse, clad in his eagle plumage, swooped 
down and catching up the beautiful maiden, 
carried her off as a treasure to his ice-clad palace 
at Jotunheim. 

The gods being now deprived of their life- 
rejuvinating apples soon began to grow wrinkled 
and gray, with all the appearance of old age 
and approaching death creeping upon them. A 
convention was called and inquiry instituted as 
to what had become of Iduna and it was dis¬ 
covered that the last seen of her she was de¬ 
parting from Asgard in Loke’s company. Loke 
was immediately sent for and threatened with 
torture and death if he did not without delay 
bring Iduna and her apples back to Asgard. 
Seeing that his plans had miscarried and fear¬ 
ing the vengeance of the gods he disclosed the 
entire secret of her abduction and promised to 
bring Iduna back from Jotunheim if Freya 
(Freyja) would lend him her falcon-plumage. 
The request was granted and with the swift 
Aving of the falcon he flew to the palace of the 
frost giant. Fortunately Thjasse was. gone on 
a fishing expedition. Loke lost no time in mak¬ 
ing himself known to Iduna and. transforming 
her into a nut which he held in his claws, flew 
with her rapidly back toward Asgard. Soon, 
however, all Jotunheim resounded with alarm 
and a swift messenger was sent to inform 
Thjasse of the flight of Iduna. The frost giant 


298 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


immediately returned and, putting on his eagle 
plumage, started in pursuit of the fugitives. 
Now ensued a pretty race with the falcon in 
the lead and the eagle steadily gaining. On 
the walls of Asgard were assembled all the 
gods gazing upon the spectacle in the heavens, 
and, seeing that there was danger of Loke be¬ 
ing overtaken by his swift adversary, they 
caused an immense amount of fagots and brush 
to be piled upon the walls, to which they set 
fire the instant Loke had flown over them. 
Thjasse being unable to stop his flight in time, 
flew directly into the blazing furnace, scorching 
his plumage to such an extent that he fell into 
the power of the gods, who slew him within the 
portals of the palace. 

This myth, interpreted, is seen to refer to 
summer as being overcome by the approach of 
winter (failure of the water to come to a boil 
in the kettle), the absorption of the fruitful 
spring and summer (Idun) into the icy regions 
of the north (Thjasse taking Idun to Jotenheim), 
the return of spring and season of growth and 
nourishment (Idun being carried over the walls 
of Asgard as a nut) and the death of winter by 
the heat of summer (Thjasse overcome by the 
flames from the walls of Asgard). It is hard to 
conceive of a prettier or more significant fable 
than this. 


MYTHOLOGY—VIKING LORE 


299 


THE DEATH OF BALDER 


Balder, often called Balder the Good, is the 
favorite of all the gods. He is the son of Odin 
and Frigg (Frigga). So fair and dazzling is he 
in form and feature that rays of light seem to 
issue from him. His hair is so lividly blonde, 
that the whitest of all plants (anthemis cotula) 
is to this day called Balder’s Brow. He does 
not engage in warfare; he is the mildest and 
most eloquent of all the immortals, hence he is 
beloved by all mankind. His goodness is also 
recognized by animals, the elements and inani¬ 
mate things, for once when he dreamed that 
harm would come to him his mother besought 
and readily obtained an oath from fire and 
water, from iron and all other metals, as well as 
from stones, earth, trees, shrubs, diseases, beasts, 
birds, poisons, and creeping things, that none of 
them would do any harm to Balder. But there 
was one little plant whom Frigg did not think 
it worth while to ask, for it was so small, weak 
and innocent that it could harm no one—it was 
the Mistletoe. 

When it became known that nothing in the 
world would harm Balder, it grew to be a 
favorite pastime of the gods to get him to stand 
up and serve them as a mark, some hurling 
darts at him, some stones, while others hewed 
at him with their swords and battle-axes; for 
whatever they did none of them could harm 
him. But when Loke the evil one beheld the 



300 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


scene he was sorely vexed that Balder was not 
hurt. Assuming the guise of a woman he went 
to Fensal, the mansion of Frigg, who inquired 
of him what the gods were doing at their meet¬ 
ings and was told that they were hurling darts 
and stones at Balder without being able to 
hurt him. “Ay”, said Frigg, not recognizing her 
intriguing visitor, “neither animate nor inani¬ 
mate things can hurt Balder, for I have exacted 
an oath from them all.” What!” exclaimed the 
old woman, “have all things sworn to spare 
Balder?” “All things,” replied Frigg, “except 
one little shrub called the Mistletoe and from 
which I thought it needless to crave an oath, it 
being so small and feeble.” 

As soon as Loke heard this he went away, 
and, resuming his natural form, pulled up the 
Mistletoe and repaired to the place where the 
gods were assembled. There he found Hoder 
standing to one side without engaging in the 
sport, on account of his blindness. “Why do 
you not also throw something at Balder?” in¬ 
quired Loke. “Because I am blind,” answered 
Hoder, “and cannot see where he is; besides 
I have nothing to throw with.” “Come then,” 
said Loke, “do like the rest, and show honor 
to Balder by throwing this twig at him, and I 
will direct your arm toward the place where he 
stands.” Hoder then took the Mistletoe and 
under the guidance of Loke darted it at Balder, 
who, pierced through by its delicate point, fell 
down lifeless. 

The gods were struck speechless with horror 
and amazement. Odin took the loss most 
keenty, and Frigg asked who among the gods 


MYTHOLOGY—VIKING LORE 


301 


would volunteer by riding to the lower regions 
to try and find Balder and offer a ransom to 
Hel, the goddess of -the nether world, if she 
would permit Balder to return to Asgard. Her- 
mud, surnamed the Nimble, offered to under¬ 
take the journey, and was provided with Odin’s 
eight-footed steed, “Sleipner”, to insure the 
swiftness and safety of his adventure. 

Meanwhile the gods took the dead body of 
Balder and carried it to the sea, where lay his 
famous ship, “Ringhorn”, on which a funeral 
pile was constructed and upon which the body 
was placed. Nanna, his wife, daughter of 
“Nep” (a bud),—the floral goddess, whose grief 
was unconsolable,—expired on the spot from a 
broken heart, and was placed beside her spouse. 
Odin knelt down and whispered something in 
Balder’s ear. The pile was set on fire. Thor 
stood nearby and consecrated the blaze with his 
Hammer. Before his feet sprang up a dwarf 
called “Lit”. Thor kicked him into the fire so 
that he also was consumed. Balder’s horse, 
fully caparisoned, was also laid on the pile. The 
ship was pushed out to sea while the flames 
were still rising toward the heavens, and on 
the shore stood a vast concourse of gods and 
demigods, witnessing with blanched and sorrow¬ 
ful faces the departure of the fairest and best 
of all the denizens of the skies. 

This myth finds an apt explanation in the 
seasons of the year, in the change from light 
to darkness, from summer to winter. Balder 
is the bright and beautiful summer. His death 
by the blind Hoder (winter) is the victory of 
darkness over the light of summer. The flowers 


302 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


(Nanna) die with him, and even the little sprigs 
(Lit) that linger for a while, succumb to the 
inexorable foe. On the great ocean of life sum¬ 
mer is consumed by the ravages of winter. But 
what of the word that Odin whispered in 
Balder’s ear? It is the word “Immortality”. 
For summer will come again; and its apparent 
death is only a restful sleep. 

Balder is the god of light; Loke is the god 
of fire; fire is jealous of light. The pure light 
of heaven and the blaze of fire are each other’s 
eternal enemies. Balder does not fight, he only 
shines and dazzles. Only fighting men go to 
the heaven of the gods, hence the soul of Balder 
must go to another world, there to remain until 
the last great battle at Ragnarok, the twilight 
of the gods. 

But it would be resting satisfied with but the 
shell to interpret Balder as the mere imper¬ 
sonation of the natural. He symbolizes in the 
profoundest sense the heavenly light of the soul 
and of the mind, in purity, innocence and piety. 
There can be no doubt that our ancestors com¬ 
bined the ethical with the physical in this myth. 
Innocence cannot be wounded. Arrogance and 
jealousy throw their pointed arrows of slander 
at it, but they fall harmless to the ground. But 
there is one inclination, one unguarded spot in 
the nature of man. “The mischief-maker knows 
how to find this and innocence is pierced. Al¬ 
ways when light is slain by darkness it is the 
beautiful and good that is stricken down. Balder 
dies in the spiritual world when the good are 
led away from the paths of virtue, when the 


MYTHOLOGY—VIKING LORE 


303 


soul becomes dark and gloomy, forgetting its 
heavenly origin.” 

But what of the messenger who was sent to 
implore the return of Balder? He came back 
wearing a ring, the ring that Balder wore 
about his arm and which had the wonderful 
property of reproducing itself indefinitely, at 
regular intervals, thus symbolizing the return 
of earth’s flowery carpet, with its fruitfulness 
and abundance, and the prolific quality of Good¬ 
ness, which automatically reproduces itself. 

When it is considered that this myth had its 
origin in the so-called dark ages of man, before 
the advent of Christianity, before what by us 
is considered the age of civilization, it is re¬ 
markable,—nay, it is admirable, not only for 
its highly poetical significance, but for the deep 
spiritual thought and feeling that breathe 
through it, pointing to the evident fact that 
love of nature and the idea of the immortality 
of the soul is as ancient as the reason of man 
and as inherent as the instinct of regeneration. 


304 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


THE FENRIS WOLF 

When the gods found they could not bind the 
Fenris Wolf even with the strongest chain, 
they sent a messenger to Svartalfaheim to have 
the night elves fashion a bond which nothing 
could sever. By their magic art they produced 
a rope out of such impalpable materials as: 

The sound of a cat’s footstep, 

A woman’s beard. 

The roots of a mountain. 

The longing of the bear, 

The voice of fishes, 

And the spittle of birds. 

This rope had the wonderful property of be¬ 
coming stronger the more it was strained. But 
when the Fenris Wolf saw this slender cord he 
became suspicious and refused to suffer himself 
to be bound with it unless one of the JEsir 
would put his hand in his mouth as a pledge 
that he, the wolf, should be released in the 
event that he could not break the bond. All 
drew back and refused except Tyr, who boldly 
stepped forward and thrust his hand between 
the monster’s jaws. The gods now bound the 
creature with the magic cord, Gleipner, and soon 
shouted with glee when they saw that at last 
they had the wolf in their power. But Tyr did 
not shout with glee, for, rather than see the 
wolf unbound he suffered him to bite off his 
hand at the wrist, thus freeing the world, for 
a time at least, from the power of this evil 
monster. 


MYTHOLOGY—VIKING LORE 


305 


THOR’S VISIT TO JOTENHEIM 

Thialfy and Loki had been easily vanquished 
by Logi and Hugi and so the contest with the 
frost giants in the palace of Jotenheim all de¬ 
pended upon Thor. Utgard-Loki, the frost 
king, demanded in what manner Thor would 
begin and he having expressed himself as being 
extremely thirsty, the Asa giant proposed a 
drinking bout, whereupon an immense horn, 
filled with water, was brought in and its small 
end stuck into the wall. Thor set his lips to the 
brim and, exhaling all his breath, pulled a long 
and mighty draft, but only succeeded in decreas¬ 
ing the contents to an almost imperceptible de¬ 
gree. Thor then proposed a lifting match, but 
the king refused to pit any of his warriors 
against him, ordered in a small black cat, and 
laughingly invited Thor to raise it. Intending 
to merely hurl the creature in the king’s face, 
Thor put his enormous hand under it when, to 
his utter astonishment, he found that he could 
only arch the cat’s back a little and cause it 
for a moment to take one foot from the floor. 

Thor, now thoroughly aroused, proposed a 
feat in which he was without a peer in all the 
world—that of wrestling, but instead of being 
confronted with one of the king’s biggest giants, 
there was ushered in an old crone—a toothless, 
bent-up hag. Suspecting some trick of illusion, 
Thor grasped the old woman firmly about the 
waist and brought into play all his prodigious 
strength, but could only cause her to bend a 
little lower until one of her knees almost 
touched the floor. 


306 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


The king now arose in great agitation and 
addressed the visitors: “You, Loki, are the 
greatest eater; you, Thialfy, the swiftest runner, 
and you, Thor, the mightiest drinker, the most 
powerful lifter and the greatest wrestler that 
we have ever seen. I have merely deceived 
you by the aid of magic, for I set Loki to con¬ 
tend with Fire, the most terrible of all devour¬ 
ing element; Thialfy raced with Time, which 
nothing can overtake; the horn from which 
you drank, O mighty Thor, was connected with 
the Sea whose shores have already receded 
from your mighty suck; the Cat you attempted 
to lift was the great Midgard Serpent which 
encompasses the earth, and so tremendous was 
your strain that it can no longer bite its tail; 
the Crone with whom you wrestled was Old 
Age and you nearly brought her to her knees! 
Depart in peace, O mightiest of the mighty; 
we acknowledge our defeat.” 





MYTHOLOGY—VIKING LORE 


307 


RAGNARoK, THE TWILIGHT OF THE 
GODS 

It was a firm belief of the northern nations 
that a time would come when all the visible 
creation, the Gods of Valhalla and Nifflheim, 
and the inhabitants of Jotumheim, Alpheim, and 
Midgard, would be destroyed. The fearful day 
of destruction will not, however, be without its 
forerunners. 

First will come a triple winter, during which 
snow will fall from the four corners of the 
heavens, the frost be very severe, the wind 
piercing, the weather tempestuous, and the sun 
import no gladness. Three such winters will 
pass away without being tempered by a single 
summer. Three other similar winters will then 
follow, during which war and discord will spread 
over the universe. The earth itself will be 
frightened and begin to tremble, the sea leave 
its basin, the heavens tear asunder, and men 
perish in great numbers, and the eagles of the 
air feast upon their still quivering bodies. The 
wolf Fenris will now break his bonds, the Mid¬ 
gard serpent rise out of her bed in the sea, and 
Loki, released from his bonds, will join the 
enemies of the Gods. Amidst the general de¬ 
vastation the sons of Muspelheim will rush forth 
under their leader, Sutr, before and behind whom 
are flames and liquid fire. Onward they ride 
over Bifrost, the rainbow bridge, which breaks 
under the horses’ hoofs. But they, disregarding 
its fall, direct their course to the battlefield 


308 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


called Vigrid. Thither also repair the Fenris 
wolf, the Midgard serpent, Loki, with all the fol¬ 
lowers of Hela, and the Frost giants. Fleimdall 
now stands up and sounds the Giallar horn to 
assemble the Gods and heroes for the contest. 

The Gods advance, led on by Odin, who en¬ 
gages the Fenris wolf, but falls a victim to the 
monster who is, however, slain by Vidar, 
Odin’s son. Thor gains great renown by killing 
the Midgard serpent, but recoils and falls dead, 
suffocated with the venom which the dying 
monster emits over him. Loki and Heimdall 
meet and fight till they are both slain. The 
Gods and their enemies having fallen in battle, 
Sutr, who has killed Frey, darts fire and flames 
over the world and the whole universe is con¬ 
sumed. The sun becomes dim, the earth sinks 
into the ocean, the stars fall from heaven, and 
time is no more. 

After this Alfadur (the Almighty) will cause 
a new heaven and a new earth to arise out of 
the sea. The new earth, filled with abundance, 
will spontaneously produce its fruits without 
care or labor. 



The Viking 




PART IV 


History and Language 











HISTORY AND LANGUAGE 


313 


DISCOVERY OF VINLAND 

Scandinavians were the first white men to set 
foot upon American soil; so say the Icelandic 
Sagas and other records bear them out. The 
narrative goes back to the year 981 when Erik 
the Red sailed in search of the land of which 
he had heard so much and discovered a great 
stretch of coast which he named Greenland, in 
order to entice others to settle there. 

In the year 996 Bjarne, the son of Herjulf, 
sailed with a hardy crew from Iceland for 
Greenland, but was driven by a strong wind 
far out of his course and beheld the outlines of 
an unknown land. Approaching nearer shore 
they found it heavily wooded with low-lying 
hills beyond. There is reason to believe that this 
land which Bjarne saw was the present Nan¬ 
tucket, one degree south of Boston. Catching 
a good breeze from the southwest they returned 
to Greenland. 

About four years thereafter, that is, in the 
year 1000, Leif, the son of Erik the Red, a 
brave and adventurous spirit, hearing of Bjarne’s 
exploit, set sail for this unknown land, with a 
crew of thirty-five men, and after going far to 
the southwest of Greenland landed in Helluland 
(Newfoundland) and in Markland (Nova Sco¬ 
tia). The names Helluland and Markland were 
given to these places by Leif. After a short 
stay the party set sail before a northeast wind 
and after two days cast anchor in a sound 
(Mount Hope Bay), where they landed, built 
a large house and remained over winter. This 


314 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


place became in time a sort of settlement for 
future explorers and its various small dwellings 
were known as ‘‘Leif’s booths”. It is supposed 
to have been in the vicinity of Fall River, 
Massachusetts. Leif called the entire country 
Vinland from the fact that grapes were found 
in such plentiful quantities. 

Several other exploring expeditions followed 
the first visit of Leif Erikson, the most note¬ 
worthy being those of Thorvald, Leifs brother, 
in 1002, who was slain by the “Skraellings”, as 
they called the Indians, and was buried at 
“Krossness” (Cape Cross), situated, it is 
thought, in Massachusetts Bay. Later another 
brother, Thorstein, youngest son of Erik the 
Red, set out for Vinland, but after cruising 
about all summer returned, without reaching 
his goal. Then came the rather extensive out¬ 
fit of the distinguished Thorfinn Karlsefne, 
who, with his accomplished wife Gudrid, de¬ 
parted for Vinland in 1007 with one hundred and 
fifty men and seven women, taking passage on 
three ships with a goodly cargo for colonizing, 
including a number of cattle and sheep. The 
entire party landed and established themselves 
at Straumfjord (Buzzard’s Bay) and remained 
three years. Here a son was born to Thorfinn 
and Gudrid, whom they named Snorre, known 
in the sagas as Snorre Thorfinnson. He was 
the first white person born on American soil 
so far as history records. 

But the animosity of the Indians finally com¬ 
pelled a return of these early explorers to their 
home lands from which, particularly Iceland, 


HISTORY AND LANGUAGE 


315 


have come down to us the records of their 
heroic exploits. 

It is significant that Columbus, before he set 
sail for the lands to the westward, visited Ice¬ 
land, in 1477, and it is doubtless due to what he 
there learned of the discoveries of the intrepid 
Northmen that he felt certain of finding a large 
area of land on the opposite shores of- the 
Atlantic. 

There are many interesting facts connected 
with these various adventures of our sturdy an¬ 
cestors, especially concerning the origin of the 
Newport Tower, the Dighton Rock, the finding 
of the skeleton in armor, and the meeting with 
one Bjorne Asbrandson, long lost among the 
Indians of Vinland. 

For many years historians were inclined .to 
cast doubt upon these narratives, attributing 
them to the confusion of early writers in re¬ 
counting adventures in and about Iceland and 
Greenland, and some have even consigned them 
to the realms of myth and fable. But later, 
owing to the discovery of additional records, 
historians generally begin their account of the 
discovery of America by a recital in substantial 
accord with the preceding narrative. 


316 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


ICELAND, THE ENCHANTED 

A large island of the North Atlantic Ocean, 
and a dependency of Denmark, 250 miles east of 
Greenland and 700 miles northwest of Norway, 
bordering on the Arctic Circle, larger than Ire¬ 
land, being 301 miles east and west by a breadth 
of 200 miles, is today, as it has been for nearly 
one thousand years, the home of the direct de¬ 
scendants of the pure Viking stock of the Scan¬ 
dinavian race. 

We have authentic records to prove that Ice¬ 
land was first settled by the Norsemen about the 
year 874, mostly of the so-called Noble stock, 
including such names as Nadod, Ingolf, Betil, 
Skalle-grom, and Thorolf. Later, in 891, came 
a Swede named Gardar, who gave the island the 
name of “Snoland”, then came the Norwegian 
nobleman, Floki Rafn, who gave Iceland its 
present name. Several of these early visitors 
returned with accounts of giants who lived in 
caves where they fought with fire, boiling water 
and liquid minerals. 

The harsh rule of Harald Haarfager in Nor¬ 
way drove many to Iceland, the most important 
expedition being headed by Ingolf in 874. Near¬ 
ing the island he cast into the sea the conse¬ 
crated door-posts of his house. They floated 
into the bay on the southwest coast, where In¬ 
golf fixed his abode, the site of Iceland’s princi¬ 
pal city, Reykiavik. 

Iceland was governed as a republic until the 
year 1241, when it was brought completely un¬ 
der the control of Norway, under King Hakon. 


f 


HISTORY AND LANGUAGE 317 

Christianity was first introduced in the latter 
part of the tenth century. Iceland became a 
part of Denmark in the fourteenth century, when 
Norway came under Danish rule. 

Icelandic history has great value as a study of 
the ancient people of Scandinavia. Its inhab¬ 
itants have been, from the earliest times, a 
highly educated people, speaking the Norroena 
Mai, the original language of the Vikings, and 
keeping it practically unimpaired for all these 
centuries. This language is of untold value to 
the lexicographer, the historian and the philol¬ 
ogist, providing a key to the old runes as well 
as to the habits of life, customs, aspirations and 
thoughts of the sturdiest race of which history 
has any record. 

In the Eddas we have the Iliad and Odyssey 
of Scandinavia in the days when the Vikings 
raised their images and temples to the glory of 
Odin, and when Ygdrasil, the giant ash, bore up 
the four corners of the world. The most com¬ 
plete specimen of the elder Edda, known as the 
old Vellum Codex, was found in 1643 and pre¬ 
sented to the King of Denmark, Frederick III, 
and placed in the Royal Library at Copenhagen, 
where it still remains. It contains the story of 
the creation of the world from chaos, the origin 
of the giants, the gods, the dwarfs, and the 
human race, together with other events relating 
to the mythology of the North and ending with 
the destruction of the gods and the world, and 
their renewal. It sheds a flood of light upon the 
customs and manners of the dark centuries of 
the middle ages. 


318 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


Iceland is the most volcanic region on earth, 
having 107 known volcanoes and thousands of 
craters, great and small. Its highest peak is 
Mt. Hecla, 20 miles from the south coast, with 
a height of 5,110 feet and a crater 100 feet in 
depth. In 1875 Mt. A'skja, in rupture, threw 
ashes as far as Bergen, Norway, and Stockholm, 
Sweden. In 1783, an outbreak of Mt. Laki 
destroyed half of the animal life of the island 
and resulting famine produced the death of one- 
fifth of its population. Earthquakes are fre¬ 
quent in the volcanic district. Hot springs 
abound in every part of Iceland, singly and in 
groups, including springs of sulphur, carbonic 
acid, and boiling mud. Only the south coast is 
inhabited permanently, the north coast being 
icebound and only clear of ice once in four 
years. Its glacial area covers 5,170 square miles, 
of which 120 glaciers are known. It has a 
great number of streams, waterfalls, lakes and 
geysers (the latter from the Icelandic word 
“geysa”, meaning a rumbling noise) and basaltic 
caves, some of them equal to the famous cave 
of Staffa, Scotland. 

Iceland is an enchanted land, which, though 
far north, has a comparatively mild climate to 
the south, and although its vegetation is stunted, 
its commerce in animal and mineral products, 
especially sheep and sulphur, is rapidly in¬ 
creasing. 


HISTORY AND LANGUAGE 


319 


THE RUNES 

HBltrK*IKhYh 

a b d e f g h i k l m n 

4 B, & K H 1 D 

op r s t tli u,v y z ce o 

The term Rune, applied to letters used by the 
Northmen of early times, is derived from a 
Scandinavian root which signifies to carve. The 
origin of these characters has been long wrapped 
in mystery, but it is generally held today that 
they are from an ancient Latin alphabet and 
came up through the Teuton and Anglo-Saxon 
races from the Celtic peoples of the Alps. They 
were mostly applied by the Northmen to pur¬ 
poses of necromancy, witchcraft and enchant¬ 
ment, but we find them also in inscriptions, 
which, like certain Etruscan and ancient Italian 
writings, proceed from right to left, and, in some 
cases the reverse, or, still again, in both direc¬ 
tions in the same narrative. These inscriptions 
are of the greatest historical value in that they 
record the acts of kings and other notable per¬ 
sonages, as well as their adventures, including 
the initial efforts of the Christian missionaries 
in Scandinavia, and, until the thirteenth cen¬ 
tury, even the laws. They afforded, moreover, 
the means of maintaining intercourse between 



320 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


the scattered offshoots of the great northern 
stock; thus, during the eighth and ninth cen¬ 
turies, when the Northmen had extended their 
powers over a great portion of Europe, letters 
written in runes were frequently sent from one 
prince to another, and could be read equally 
well at Anglo-Saxon, Frankish, Gothic, Russian, 
Scandinavian, and Byzantine courts. 

The language of the runes, like that of the 
sagas, is the Norrcena Mai, a tongue which, 
after a lapse of a thousand years, has been es¬ 
sentially maintained by the Scandinavians of 
Iceland. From the earliest inscriptions found 
on what are commonly termed “rune-stones,” 
we know that the alphabet of this language orig¬ 
inally consisted of but sixteen letters. But it 
was not long before these were found inade¬ 
quate to express the ever-expanding language 
and requirements of the Northmen, a fact which 
becomes apparent as early as the 10th century. 
As time went on additions were made until by 
the middle of the 12th century the runes had 
become sufficiently complex to lend themselves 
as readily to the expression of the language 
as the characters of the Latin alphabet, as may 
be seen from the illustration accompanying this 
article, a reproduction of runes from monu¬ 
ments of that period, the best preserved of 
which are exhibited in the great museum at 
Copenhagen. 

As only a comparatively few of the inscrip¬ 
tions are dated, and these invariably of later 
times, the only method of ascertaining their age 
is by observing whether or not any punctuation 
is used, whether any characters appear ex- 


HISTORY AND LANGUAGE 


321 


pressive of the dipthongs, or those of the im¬ 
perfect tense, and especially if certain of the 
characters are employed to represent different 
letters, as, for example, the letter R, which in 
the older and simpler form of the alphabet 
was written like the letter Y in the illustration. 


322 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


SIMILARITY OF ENGLISH AND SCAN¬ 
DINAVIAN WORDS 


Nearly all English words that deal with home- 
life are Scandinavian, such as home, family, hus¬ 
band (hus-bonde), father, mother, son, daugh¬ 
ter, brother, sister, uncle. Also household 
words like, house, room, door, threshold (tros- 
kel), stool, bench (benk), wood, fire, bake, bread, 
wash, bathe, spin, knit (knyta), thread, yarn, 
hat, shoe, stick, yard (gard), tree, bush, bloom, 
sweet, sour, salt, bitter, warm, hot, cold, hun¬ 
ger, eat, thirst, drink, water, milk, ale, full, 
come, go, school, learn, good, better, best, day, 
night, sun, moon, week, month, year, old, young, 
sick, well, live, and die. Also handicrafts such 
as shoemaker, baker, barber, smith, and butcher- 
slaughter (slagtare). Farming or Husbandry: 
Wagon, plough, hammer, spade, shovel, land, 
plant, seed, grass, hay, straw, corn, wheat. 
Outdoor Life: Ride, drive (drifva), hop, spring, 
leap, run, stand, sit, creep, lift, fall, swim, sing, 
dance. All the days of the week except Satur¬ 
day, all the senses, hearing, seeing, etc., except 
smelling, for even “tasting” has its counterpart 
in the word “smack” (smaka). All the cardinal 
numbers, one, two, three, etc., and all the ordi¬ 
nal numbers except the word “second”. The 
Primary Colors and Shades: Red, blue, green, 
brown, swart, white, and grey. Even yellow is 
“gill”, which is the color of “gold”. And then 
we have words of the Sea and Sea-life, includ¬ 
ing the Cardinal Points, North, East, South and 



HISTORY AND LANGUAGE 


323 


West; bottom, deep, sea, billow (bolja), ship, 
boat, fish, net, and storm, and of the climate: 
sky, wind, rain, hail, frost, snow, wet, ice, win¬ 
ter, summer, thunder, and weather. 

Naturally, words relating to the Human Body, 
Animals and Birds, and to Government and 
Warfare, would be found in this old medium of 
speech, and so we find, shoulder, arm, hand, 
finger, nail (nagel), bone, knee, foot, toe, also 
head, hair eye (Danish 0je), ear, nose, lip, 
tongue, flesh, blood, breast, lung, liver, heart. 
Cow, calf, ox, lamb, goat, cat, hound, wolf, hen, 
goose, swan, lark, stork, nightingale (naktergal) ; 
King, throne, crown, pearls, chamber (kam- 
mare), law (lag), probably from the Latin 
(Lex); fight (fekta), spear (spjut), sword, 
shield, knife, belt, harness, helmet (hjelm), axe, 
slave, chain (kedja), bind (binda), flag, free. 

There are many other words relating to 
social and commercial life, to religion, and to 
the thousand and one affairs of every day con¬ 
cern. 


STUDIES IN ENGLISH 

The Scandinavian alphabets contain several 
letters which, owing to their radically different 
sounds from the corresponding letters in the 
English language, are responsible for the mis¬ 
pronunciation of certain English words by Scan¬ 
dinavians who have not been thoroughly 
schooled in the language of this country. They 
are the letters i, j, o and w, and the combined 
sounds of “th” and “ch”. 



324 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


The letter “i” standing alone, in the Scandi¬ 
navian languages, has the sound of “ee” as in 
the word “seed” in the English, whereas in the 
latter tongue it has the sound of “i” in the word 
“wide”. But in combination with words of a 
single syllable, not joined with another vowel 
or ending with a final “e”, it has the sound of 
“i” as in the word “spin”. 

The English letter “j” has the sound of “y” 
in Scandinavian speech, but in the former it 
has the sound of “j” as in the Swedish word 
“bedja”, meaning to ask, to pray, etc., in short, 
it has the sound of “dj”. 

The letter “o” in the Scandinavian languages, 
when standing alone, has the sound of “oo” in 
the English word “poor”, but in the latter me¬ 
dium it has the sound of “o” as in “no” or in 
the Swedish letter “a” as in “stal” (steel), or in 
the Danish and Norwegian “aa” as in “blaa” 
(blue). 

The letter “w” has the sound of “v” in the 
Scandinavian languages, but in the English it 
has a sound like “v” preceded by a short “u” 
—viz., “uv”. Hence the word “woman” is pro¬ 
nounced “uvooman” and not “vooman”. The 
plural of this word, although spelled “women”, 
is pronounced as though it were spelled “wim- 
men”, thus changing the “o” into a short “i”, 
which is a rare exception in English speech. 

The combined consonants “th” have the sound 
of “dh” as in the word “that”, pronounced 
“dhat”, and the combined “ch” has the sound of 
“tch” as in the Swedish word “tchuck” (thick). 


HISTORY AND LANGUAGE 


325 


. SCANDINAVIAN NAMES 

“O’ dar va 1 uss i Rallebo, o’ Tuve Bengtson, 
Kersti mit i Svangen, Anders Svenson, 

Stina i Krokhullt, o’ Petter i Saxon, 

O’ Anna Hesihalsen, Nicklas Smed.” 

(Old Peasant Song.) 

“The Teutonic or Anglo-Saxon races had an¬ 
ciently no surnames, or family names, like the 
Romans. In addition to given names, prom¬ 
inent men were designated by nickname refer¬ 
ring to some trait of character or heroic deed; 
but when it became necessary to distinguish 
one person from another in the common walks 
of life, he was referred to as the son (or daugh¬ 
ter) of a man by such or such name. This cus¬ 
tom still prevails, although to a lessening ex¬ 
tent, in the rural districts of Sweden, Norway, 
and Denmark, as it does in the conversation 
of laborers in some of the rural districts of Great 
Britain. The son has therefore the word “son” 
added to his father’s given name; in the modern 
language this suffix is often written “sen”, es¬ 
pecially in the Danish. As in England, many 
names ending in “son” or “sen” have already 
become family names in the Scandinavian coun¬ 
tries, but the custom is not generally adhered 
to by Scandinavians in America; that is to say, 
if the father’s name is Peter Johnson, the son’s 
name is not John or Olaf Peterson. 


326 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


“In some parts of Scandinavia the owner of a 
farm has the name of the farm added to his 
name, and this, then, becomes the family name, 
and is often retained in this country, though 
seldom when its English pronunciation is too 
difficult. Sometimes names are translated into 
English; thus “Haug” or “Bakken” become 
“Hill”, or “Sjo” becomes “Sea”, etc. But more 
frequently the orthography is only changed a 
little, and this will undoubtedly be done still 
less frequently in the future; thus Fjeld is writ¬ 
ten Field, Blomstad—Bloomstead, etc.” 




HISTORY AND LANGUAGE 


327 


SCANDINAVIAN STUDIES 


(Excerpt from a Monograph by Albert E. Egge, for¬ 
mer Professor of Scandinavian Studies at the Washing¬ 
ton State College.) 

The Scandinavian peoples are the nearest of 
kin to the English, with whom they mixed their 
blood during the occupation of the north half of 
England and parts of Scotland in the ninth cen¬ 
tury and later. The Scandinavian languages 
are also the languages nearest akin to the Eng¬ 
lish language, both in vocabulary and style, 
especially since the Scandinavian dominion in 
Britain, where the two languages blended. 
Scandinavian languages should, therefore, ap¬ 
peal to English-speaking people and language, 
because the Scandinavian peoples are of nearly 
the same race and character, have largely con¬ 
tributed to the making of the English people 
and the language they speak, have a noble and 
inspiring literature, and are permeated in gen¬ 
eral by the same political and social ideals as the 
English. 

The prose literature produced by the Scan¬ 
dinavian peoples during the latter part of the 
middle ages—the celebrated Saga literature—is 
recognized as being superior to the prose litera¬ 
ture produced in the rest of Europe during the 
same period. During the last 200 years, au¬ 
thors like Ludvig Holberg, Adam Oehlens- 
chlagger, Esais Tegner, J. L. Runeberg, Hans 
Christian Andersen, B. S. Ingemann, Frederik 



32S 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


Paludan Mueller, George Brandes, Henrik Ib¬ 
sen, Bjornstjerne Bjornson, August Strindberg 
and Selma Lagerlof have been unsurpassed in 
their kind, and some like Andersen and Ibsen, 
unapproached. 

Excepting the Swedish settlements on the 
Delaware, in the seventeenth century, and spo¬ 
radic cases later, Scandinavian immigration to 
the United' States began about 100 years ago, 
and it is estimated that there are now about 
5,000,000 people of Scandinavian birth or de¬ 
scent in the country. 

West of the Rocky Mountains, Scandinavian 
studies were first introduced at the State Col¬ 
lege of Washington in 1905. A few years later 
a department of Scandinavian languages was es¬ 
tablished at the University of Washington, and 
courses have been introduced also in the Uni¬ 
versities of Oregon, Idaho and Colorado. 

In private schools and colleges maintained by 
Scandinavians in this country, of which there 
are many, some of high rank, for example, 
Luther College, St. Olaf College, Augustana Col¬ 
lege and Adolphus College, Scandinavian lan¬ 
guages have always been a part in the curri¬ 
culum. 

Of late years the study of Scandinavian has 
been introduced also in a considerable number 
of high schools in many parts of the United 
States, especially in regions where the Scan¬ 
dinavian element is prominent. 

All students of Scandinavian ancestry should 
have the ambition to study Scandinavian, from 


HISTORY AND LANGUAGE 


329 


feelings of filial piety, if for no other considera¬ 
tion. To English-speaking peoples the study of 
Scandinavian should appeal for several reasons. 
In the first place, as history tells us, the Eng¬ 
lish people (and hence their descendants) are 
largely, if not chiefly, of Scandinavian descent. 
The Jutes and Angles, who made Britain Eng¬ 
lish, were next-door neighbors to the Danes be¬ 
fore their migration to Britain in the fifth 
century and later; and in the ninth and follow¬ 
ing centuries Great Britain was thickly settled 
by Danes and Norwegians, especially northern 
England and parts of Scotland, also the Isle of 
Man, parts of Ireland, and the islands west and 
north of Scotland, particularly the Orkneys and 
Shetland?, which became wholly Norse. 

Parts of Scotland and Ireland and the smaller 
islands remained under Norse dominion for about 
400 years, and the English language throughout 
Scotland and northern England was strongly 
marked by the Scandinavian settlers in pro¬ 
nunciation as well as in vocabulary. Next to 
French, no other language has had as great an 
influence upon English as Scandinavian. French 
and Latin have influenced only the vocabulary, 
but Scandinavian also changed the grammar and 
the pronunciation. 

The intense love of personal liberty on the 
part of the Scandinavians in Britain, who offered 
the most stubborn resistance to William the 
Conqueror, is largely the source of the political 
and civil liberty enjoyed by the English-speak¬ 
ing peoples of today. 


330 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


“NATURE AND ORIGIN OF THE ENGLISH 
LANGUAGE” 


A few years ago I attended a lecture on the 
subject of “The Problems of Life,” in which 
the speaker, among other interesting remarks, 
expressed the opinion that everyone ought to 
have some “hobby,” preferably a useful one, be¬ 
cause it made life more interesting. On my way 
home after the lecture I pondered over this 
remark but was not sure that 1 understood 
what “hobby” meant, so as soon as I got to my 
abode I took down the dictionary and there 
found that the word comes from the Danish 
“hoppe” or Swedish “hoppa” and that in Old 
English it was at first solely employed as a 
compound with “horse,”—that is to say, “hobby-, 
horse, a toy with which children amuse them¬ 
selves, generally a stick with or without the 
image of a horse’s head fastened at one end, 
on which they stand astride and hop about in 
imitation of riding on a prancing steed,—“kjep- 
hest in Danish, or “ridkapp” in Swedish. In 
the sense in which it was used by the lecturer I 
found that “hobby" meant a favorite pursuit, 
or a subject, plan or undertaking, something 
that engrosses one’s attention, a sort of ruling 
passion or exciting diversion, like that of a child 
riding a hobby-horse, and which if persisted in 
to excess is a sort of occupation that is apt to 
annoy others while at the same time affording 



HISTORY AND LANGUAGE 


endless amusement to the one with the hobby, 
or on the horse, so to speak. 

What a wonderful word! I thought; how full 
of meaning! It happened that night that I took 
for my pillow-companion a book of Emerson’s 
essays, in which I came across this statement : 

“—though the origin of our words is forgotten, 
each word was at first a stroke of genius, and 
obtained currency, because for the moment it 
symbolized the world to the first speaker and 
to the hearer. The etymologist finds the dead¬ 
est word to have been once a brilliant picture. 
Language is fossil poetry.” 

From that time on Language became my 
"hobby,” and while I do not claim the distinc¬ 
tion of being an etymologist, much less a phi¬ 
lologist, I have learned a good deal by, and have 
had a great deal of enjoyment in the pursuit 
of, this exceedingly interesting study. The 
direct benefit, of course, has been the acquire¬ 
ment of a better knowledge and use of the Eng- 
glish language, the most complex, as well as the 
richest, in words, synonyms, antonyms, and 
shades of meaning of all the languages of the 
world, largely because of its having been rooted 
in the oldest speech-medium of the Aryan race, 
—that of Southern Scandinavia. For *a long 
time it was supposed that the people who spoke 
the old and primitive tongue must have lived as 
one community, more than three thousand years 
ago, somewhere in the northeast part of the' 
Iranian table-land, near the Hindu-Kush moun¬ 
tains, but a more recent view is that Southern 
Scandinavia, and not Asia, was the principal 
seat of the Aryans. For my authority in this 


332 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


I refer to the “Report of the British Associa¬ 
tion,” 1887, pp. 888-91. 

Language in its origin is both human and 
divine. While man doubtless created speech for 
himself, as a consequence of his social instinct 
and his ingenuity, God gave him the intelligence 
and the vocal organs that enabled him to do so. 
It is not my purpose, however, to now go into 
the history of language generally, but to discuss 
briefly the nature and origin of the English 
form of speech. About fifty-five years before 
Christ, when Julius Caesar was conquering the 
Celtic tribes, the attention of the Romans was 
attracted to an unknown land dimly perceivable 
across the channel from the northern coast of 
Gaul. Caesar determined to explore this country 
and it is to the records of this invasion and 
occupancy of the Romans that we owe our 
knowledge of the early inhabitants of England. 
For nearly five hundred years the Romans con¬ 
tinued to exercise a sort of suzerainty over 
Britannia, as they called the English isles, until 
their home country, now called Italy, was in¬ 
vaded by barbarians from the North, when 
the Romans withdrew their army from Britain 
in order to protect themselves at home, leaving 
the ear-ly inhabitants masters of their own 
destiny. 

Who were these primitive Britons? They 
were a mixture of Angles, Saxons and Jutes. 
The Angles came from the duchy of Sleswick;— 
there is to this day a district in the southern 
part of Sleswick between Slie and the arm of 
the Baltic called the Flensborg Fjord, known 
the “Angeln,” which doubtless accounts for 


HISTORY AND LANGUAGE 


333 


the name ‘‘England.'' The Saxons came from 
the country between the Elbe and the Eider, 
and the Jutes from the upper part of Sleswick 
or South Jutland, Denmark. Collectively these 
tribes were known as Northmen, sometimes 
Norsemen, and they include the entire Scandi- 
navion race. In the year 800 A. D. they invaded 
France under the leadership of their “Sea-kings,” 
or Vikings, during the reign of the great Em¬ 
peror Charlemagne, subduing the country to 
such extent that in the beginning of the tenth 
century the king of France ceded to Rollo, the 
leader of the Northmen, a large province which 
was called Normandy, and its inhabitants came 
to be known as Normans. These Normans be¬ 
ing related to the Anglo-Saxon races directly 
across the channel naturally mingled and traded 
with them freely, and some of the early English 
kings married the daughters of the Norman 
nobles. 

Thus it happens that the English language is 
mainly composed of three great branches; that 
is to say, Anglo-Saxon, Roman or Latin and 
Norman—French, with the main stem rooted in 
the first of these three, which, as I have shown, 
was the language of the ancient Scandinavians. 
The reason for the persistence of the Anglo- 
Saxon language over the others is probably to 
be found in the fact that as late as the eleventh 
century the list of kings of England include 
several Danish names, among them King 
Canute, who, according to the well-known story, 
tried to make the sea retire at his command. 
The history of this period is full of accounts of 
wars between the Danes and the English, and 


334 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


it is recorded that the similarity of the language 
of the two nations greatly assisted the Danes 
in subduing the country. While they were 
called Danes, it should be remembered that this 
term included at that time the inhabitants of 
Norway and Sweden. So that notwithstanding 
the Roman occupation to which 1 have referred 
and the Norman Conquest which follow ed close 
upon that of the Danes, the Old Norse root of 
the English language was preserved and most 
of the common words then in use among the 
people of England have remained practically 
the same as in the language of their Scandi¬ 
navian progenitors; and it is mostly in words 
of “high-sounding" character and technical or 
scientific terms, together with words of com¬ 
paratively modern times induced by commerce 
and trade with various parts of the world, 
wherein the English language differs essentially 
from the old Anglo-Saxon or Scandinavian 
branch. Many of these added words are only 
synonyms of the older ones; as, for example, 
the Latin “similar" instead of “like/’ “numer¬ 
ous” instead of “many," and “omnipotent” in¬ 
stead of “Almighty." 


In addition to these admixtures, many other 
languages have added their quota, and such 
words as “aria." "fantasia," “opera,” “piano,” 
“replica," and “studio"—all of an artistic sig¬ 
nificance, come from the modern Italian, and 
from the Spanish we have such words as 
“fiasco,” “influenza," “stanza,” “umbrella,” and 
“motto ; and Malay words in English are sur¬ 
prisingly numerous, including “gingham," 
“gong.” “guta percha,” “orang-outang,” “ket- 


HISTORY AND LANGUAGE 


335 


chup.” The Polynesian has given us “taboo” 
and “tattoo, and the American Indian “squaw,” 
“wigwam,” "tobacco,” “moccasin,” "pemican,” 
and “potato.” From the Greek come many 
technical and scientific words such as “photog¬ 
raphy,” “optholmoscope," “cinematograph,” and 
“telephone.” 

As I have before intimated, no language in the 
world possesses so many different words as 
the English. (*) It used to be said that it 
comprises at least two hundred thousand, but 
recent dictionaries show more than twice that 
number, including the compounds. My diction¬ 
ary at home contains three hundred thousand 
words. Of these perhaps not over six or seven 
thousand are used even by cultivated people, 
although, of course, each group or class use 
different words according to their particular 
occupation or situation in life. Many words are 
understood by persons that do not use them, 
and many are written that are not spoken by 
either the writer or the reader. Uncertainty as 
to proper pronunciation or of correct spelling 
or syntax doubtless prevents the use of many 
words. Shakespeare is said to have used more 
words than any other person, about fifteen 


(*) Grimm’s Distonary of the German Language 
contains approximately 150,000 words; Littre’s Dic¬ 
tionary of the French Language, 210,000 words; Dahl’s 
Dictionary of the Russian Lauguage, 120,000 words; 
Petrocchi’s Dictionary of the Italian Language, 140,000 
words. 

The English Language is not only the largest, but 
it is spoken by from twenty to twenty-five per cent 
more people than any other language of the modem 
world. 



336 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


thousand having been counted in his writings. 
Owing to its vast variety of words there are 
usually many different ways of expressing the 
same idea, thus avoiding tautology or monoton¬ 
ous repetition. But this immense vocabulary and 
appropriation of words of all nations has been at 
the expense of euphony somewhat, so that it 
cannot be said that the English is as agreeable 
to the ear as some of the simpler and therefore 
purer tongues, especially is this true of lan¬ 
guages that avoid the sibilants and dentals as 
much as possible, thus producing softness and 
smoothless in speech, or the Swedish, for in¬ 
stance, where a decided inflection adds color 
and cadence to both the words and the ideas 
they express. But, on the other hand, the Eng- 
glish language possesses a charming facility for 
alliteration which greatly enhances its value 
for poetic expression—an inheritance from the 
Northmen, whose songs and “sagas” teem with 
this form of versification, while its adaptability 
to rhyming by the use of words of similar 
sound is largely owing to its great store of 
related terms and the influence of the Norman- 
French, which, as I have shown, is a mixture 
of Anglo-Saxon or Old Scandinavian and Latin, 
as modified by the Gauls. 

I will close these somewhat random remarks 
by reading an extract from the Lord’s Prayer in 
English as it exists in various specimens that 
have been preserved from the eleventh and 
twelfth centuries: 

Ure Fadir that hart in hevene, 
halgod be thi name; 

Sarriin cume thi riche; 


HISTORY AND LANGUAGE 


337 


Thi wille be don in herthe als in hevene. 
Gyve bus this hilke dai ure dacgwamlican bred, 
and forgyf hits ure gyltas, swa swa we forgyfath 
tham swa scylde user; 

Ne let us fall into no founding, 
bot frels us fra all ivele thinge. (**) 

It should be borne in mind that language 
changes with time, just as a child changes in 
growing to maturity; but as in the case of 
man, so a language as fundamental as the Eng¬ 
lish always retains a characteristic “family like¬ 
ness” to its own youth and ancestry, which is 
easily recognized by the close observer. 

(**) On the .basis of the Lord’s Prayer, Hickes 
calculated that nine-tenths of our words were of Anglo- 
Saxon origin. Turner’s estimate was that the Norman 
words were to the Saxon as 4 to 6. Trench computed 
60 per cent Anglo j Saxon; 30 per cent Latin and 

French, and 10 per cent Greek and other sources. 


33S 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


OLD SCANDINAVIAN SUPERSTITIONS 


The title may be somewhat misleading, for 
some of the popular beliefs given below are still 
prevalent among not > only Scandinavian peoples 
but among those of other nations. Many of them 
contain echoes of traditions of great antiquity 
and all are more or less interesting to the stu¬ 
dent of old folk-lore. 

1. If a maiden and a youth eat of one and 
the same beet-root, they will fall in love with 
each other. 

2. If on a midsummer night nine kinds of 
flowers are laid under the head, a youth or 
maiden will dream of his or her sweetheart. 

3. A girl must not look in a mirror after 
dark, nor by candlelight, lest she lose the good 
will of the other sex. 

4. A bride must endeavor to see her bride¬ 
groom before he sees her; she will then have 
the mastery. 

5. The mother should meet the child at the 
door, when it is carried out to be christened; 
but when it is carried home after it is baptized, 
it should be met at the door by some one carry¬ 
ing a loaf, that it may never want bread. 

6. An empty cradle must not be rocked, the 
child will else be given to crying. 

7. If a sick person gets strange food, he 
becomes well. But if thanks are given for a 
remedy (medicine) it will have no effect. 



HISTORY AND LANGUAGE 


339 


8. Pins found in a church and made into 
fish-hooks, catch the best. If a woman steps 
over a fish-rod, no fish will bite. 

9. If you turn your slippers or shoes with 
the toes towards the bed, the mara (night¬ 
mare) will come in the night. 

10. On Easter-eve a cross should be made 
over the door of the cattle-house, against harm 
from witches. 

11. When you sleep dor the first time in a 
house you should count the beams; then your 
dream will come to pass. 

12. When cats wash themselves, or magpies 
chatter near the house, they expect strangers. 

13. If a person walks thrice round a bed of 
cabbages, after having planted them, they will 
continue free from worms. 

14. If a grain of corn is found under the 
table in sweeping on a new year’s morn, there 
will be an abundant crop that year. 

15. If a bride dances with money in her 
shoes, no witchery can affect her. 

16. If a girl wishes to know what sort of a 
husband she is to have, she must on New Year's 
eve pour some melted lead into a glass of water, 
and the following morning observe what form 
it has assumed. If it resembles a pair of scis¬ 
sors, she will get a tailor; if a hammer, he will 
be a blacksmith, etc. An egg broken into a 
glass of water will show the same results. 

17. If it is desired to know if a certain party 
shall remove from or shall stay in the house, 
cast a shoe over the head towards the door. 
If it fall so that the heel is turned towards the 


340 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


door, the party will remain; if the toe points 
towards the door the party will remove. 

18. To cut one’s nails on Friday brings good 
luck. 

19. Only those children that are born on a 
Sunday or holiday can see spirits. 

20. As the weather is on the day of the 
Seven Sleepers (July 27 ) so it will continue for 
seven weeks. 


A FEW AMERICAN ONES 

It is unlucky to open an umbrella in the 
house. 

It is lucky to carry in one’s pocket the left 
hind-foot of a grave-yard rabbit. 

The opal is an unlucky stone. 

See a pin and pick it up, all the day you’ll 
have good luck. 

It is unlucky to drive away a black cat. 

If you sing before breakfast you’ll cry before 
supper. 

If the sun shines on Candlemas Day (Feb. 
2nd), the snow falls on the first of May. 

If you mend your clothes while you have 
them on, some one will lie about you. 

If a woman drops her dish-cloth, she may 
expect callers the same day. 

If you put a piece of wedding cake under 
your pillow, you will dream of the one you are 
to marry. 



PART V 


Editorial 





























































EDITORIALS 


343 


Editorials 


In these days there seems to be a disposition, 
to scorn the past and live entirely in the present 
and immediate future, forgetting that all that 
we know comes from the past and is our in¬ 
structive guide for present and future action. 
We live so fast, we are so “speeded up” these 
days, that even the common civilities are often 
neglected, with the result that sharp words and 
ill-considered criticism are heard on every hand. 
In short, we forget too many things we ought 
to remember, and remember too many things 
we ought to forget. 

We are so buried in Today, 

With all its noise and strain and fret, 

That e’en the Past is brushed away. 

And we forget. 

Those who oppose our special school 
Of thought, we spurn with purpose set r 

And to apply the Golden Rule 
We quite forget. 

Sometimes our spleen in gossip delves—* 

It’s easy to find fault, you bet; 

But do we ask about ourselves? 

No, we forget! 



344 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


We nurse imaginary stings 

Ere bees have left their hive as yet, 
And conjure up all sorts of things 
We should forget. 

What boots it that in times gone by 
Our friend has placed us in his debt. 
A little ruffling of the sky, 

And we forget. 

Now here’s a plan to cure this blight: 

While clash with others we regret, 

If we believe their hearts are right, 

Let us forget. 


Our sketching the life of Benjamin Franklin 
has put us in what might be called a “max- 
imistical” mood. Franklin was sometimes ac¬ 
cused of being too utilitarian, too mercenary in 
his “Poor Richard” sayings, but these maxims 
contain a homely, practical philosophy, a preach¬ 
ment for the simple life, for the eternal fitness 
of things, far and apart from selfish greed. 

Since Franklin’s time, American literature has 
been enriched by even a more profound phi¬ 
losopher—Ralph Waldo Emerson, although he 
did not possess the peculiar knack of clothing 
his sayings to fit the fancy of the multitude as 
did Franklin. But, on the other hand, Emerson 
had a different message, namely, to break down 
popular but erroneous notions of moral conduct, 
and his manner of putting his points is excel¬ 
lent ; for example, he says in his essay on “Com¬ 
pensation” : 



EDITORIALS 


345 


“The bad are never successful; justice is done 
here and now.” “The dice of God are always 
loaded; He is bound to win.” “Things refuse 
to be mismanaged for long.” “If you make laws 
too sanguinary, juries will not convict.” “Every 
act rewards itself.” “Crime and punishment 
grow out of the same stem.” “In nature, notli- 
ing is given, everything is sold. What will you 
have, quoth God, pay for it and take it.” “The 
thief steals from himself.” “There is no den in 
the wide world to hide a rogue.” “You cannot 
do wrong without suffering wrong. Commit a 
crime, and always some damning circumstance 
transpires.” “But there is no penalty to vir¬ 
tue.” “All things are arranged for truth and 
benefit.” 

And then there are the latter-day sages who, 
with an intermittent mixture of truth, slang and 
irony, say: “The man is crooked who says no¬ 
body is straight.” “If it were not for the fools 
the poor would never get rich.” “A person can 
read all the latest novels and still eat pie with 
a knife.” “The hardest job in the world is try¬ 
ing to live without working.” “The best way 
to remember the poor is to make the poor re¬ 
member you” (which is very fine!). 


The Third Liberty Loan drive amounted to 
over four billion dollars. The number of sub¬ 
scribers was about seventeen millions of people. 
The people of this country are standing nobly 
by the cause of liberty and justice in their 
effort to make the world “safe for democracy.” 
The American people are idealists in their love 
of peace and progress. They believe it is pos- 



346 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


sible to so order things in this world that it 
will be a good place to live in, even for the 
most lowly. With one of their most eloquent 
writers, they see a world where autocracy has 
crumbled and where despots are dust—a world 
without a slave, where man at last is free^ a 
world at peace adorned with every form of 
human art, a world where labor reaps its full 
reward, without the beggar’s out-stretched palm, 
the miser’s heartless, stony stare. They strive 
for a race without disease of flesh or brain— 
shapely and fair, the married harmony of form 
and function, for a lengthening of life, a deep¬ 
ening of joy, love canopying the earth, and over 
all, in the great dome, the eternal star of hu¬ 
man hope. 

* * * * 

Our Secretary of State, Mr. Lansing, speak¬ 
ing at a banquet early in 1917, given by the 
Amherst alumni in Washington/D. C., said, re¬ 
ferring to the imminence of war: 

“Put to the test, I do not fear the outcome. 
And yet I feel that the spread of materialism has 
been a menace to our national character, to 
which we should not be indifferent, a menace 
which ought not and must not continue. To 
preserve in their high place in the life of the 
republic those great impulses which have made 
us a virile and proud nation, we must cultivate 
sentiment and emphasize the ideal more than we 
have done in recent years. We must cease 
measuring accomplishment by dollars and cents. 
Sentiment of every sort, provided its object is 
noble, is worth while.” 

This utterance meets with our unqualified ap- 


EDITORIALS 


347 


proval, as our readers may readily guess from 
remarks along the same line which we have made 
from time to time. This money-worship is 
about the sickliest proposition we know of. 
No wonder Moses got disgusted with the gold- 
kissers. If they had worshiped something be¬ 
sides a “golden calf”, perhaps he might have 
been more resigned. It was much harder to 
break the Romans of the worship of Appolo, 
the god of Music, or to break the Norsemen of 
the worship of Odin, the god of Poetry, for 
their attributes were ideal, full of sentiment 
and aspired to lofty. thoughts, emphasizing the 
“internal, not the external qualifications of 
men”. Putting it all out for show, swelling up 
with fine equipage, and strutting around like a 
turkey gobbler, while at the same time not 
knowing the difference between Scott’s “Lady 
of the Lake” and “Scott’s Emulsion”, or be¬ 
tween Julius Caesar and the black man that 
used to saw wood for the Snodgrasses next door, 
has, we hope, about seen its day. 


Much of the excellence of Scandinavian lit¬ 
erature may be ascribed to the influence of 
Saemond, the Wise, born in Iceland in 1056, 
in his wonderful work known as the Elder 
Edda, from which most of our knowledge of 
Norse mythology is derived. We see this re¬ 
flected in the fervant patriotism of Runeberg, 
the imaginative fancy of Welhaven, the force 
and simplicity of Oelenschlasger, the fantastic 
creations of Hans Christian Andersen, the un¬ 
adorned loveliness of Bjjzfrnson, the wild gran- 



348 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


deur and impetuosity of Wergeland, the refined 
and elegant phrases of Tegner, and the weird, 
melodious abandon of Ibsen. 


One of the greatest institutions ever set up— 
the jury system, was originated by the Vikings. 
The jury system with twelve men comes down 
'o us from the time of the Viking invasions of 
England; those people customarily divided their 
lands into cantons, and each canton into twelve 
portions under twelve chiefs. These passed 
judgment on the more serious criminal and civiL 
cases, and the custom has outlasted all the in¬ 
tervening centuries. 


And here is another item interesting to our 
race: “One of the biggest men in Alaska is a 
Dane. He is Prof. C. C. Georgeson, head of the 
government agricultural station there. His suc¬ 
cess has been amazing. He has matured barley 
within 300 miles of the Arctic circle. At Sitka 
his fields are red with the most luscious straw¬ 
berries grown. Potatoes, wheat, oats, cabbage, 
turnips, alfalfa, lettuce and peas, have all come 
up prodigally under the touch of his wizard 
hand, to gladden the days of the miner and 
musher. How the sourdoughs used to laugh at 
the big Dane, puttering around in his experi¬ 
ment gardens! But Georgeson knew how often 
the scientist is mistaken for the clown, and kept 
plugging. Prof. Georgeson is one of the seers 
who is making a grim land habitable.” 


“When the Almighty began the creation, He 
made a lot of things; and among the scraps left 





EDITORIALS 


349 


over He made a peculiar creature all covered 
with the slime of suspicion and jealousy, with 
hypocrisy and envy, painted a yellow streak 
down its back, and called it a ‘Knocker’. 


“But the product was so fearful to contemplate 
that He determined to counteract it; so He took 
a sunbeam, put it in the heart of a child, the 
brain of a man, wrapped it in a halo of self- 
abnegation, covered it over with brotherly love, 
gave it a mask of velvet and a grasp of steel, 
made it a lover of the fields and flowers, a be¬ 
liever in equality and justice, a helper of the 
downtrodden and oppressed; put a torch in its 
hand, stamped an indelible smile on its face, and 
called it a ‘Booster’.” 


After all, good friends, is it not better to 
always try and look upon the bright side, to 
make the best of life as we find it,—to take 
things as they come, with a smile? Anyone 
who can lure us into smiling these halcyon 
days has got our vote. The smile is the one 
thing in this troubled world that saves its face, 
and, like the early sunlight kissing the waiting 
flowers, it lends charm and sweetness to exist¬ 
ence. 

“Nobody ever added up 
The value of a smile. 

We know how much a dollar’s worth, 

And how much is a mile. 

We know the distance of the sun, 

The size and weight of earth; 

But no one here can tell us just 
How much a smile is worth.” 




350 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


We Scandinavians who have become citizens 
of the United States ought to feel pretty proud 
of our “Americanism”, for unlike the native-born 
we are Americans by choice instead of Ameri¬ 
cans by necessity. Still, we need not forget the 
land from which we came, any more than a 
man who has a good wife need forget his mother. 
He has married the former, it is true, and owes 
her his first allegiance, but to the latter he owes 
his very existence and all the fond recollections 
of his childhood days. 


One reason we are trying our hand at trans¬ 
lating Scandinavian poetry of the better class 
is, not that we think we can do it better than 
anybody else, but because most of the transla¬ 
tions we see are so very badly done that it could 
hardly be worse, and therefore we hope to at 
least improve upon it a little. Now, take for 
instance, this specimen of that fine Swedish 
folksong, “Du gamla, du friska”, recently put 
forth to be sung by the pupils in one of our 
American schools: 

“Thou aged, thou fadeless, thou high-moun- 
tained north, 

Thou silent, thou gladsom, beauteous country; 
I greet thee, the fairest of all the lands of earth, 
Thv sun, thy heavens bright, thy meadows 
green. * * * ” 

There’s a “rift in the lute” somewhere here. 
What becomes of the flow and melody in the 
words? Where is the rhyme? How long would 
one have to hang onto that last word “green” 



EDITORIALS 


351 


in order to fill out the long, final note? Say 
nothing of rhyming “earth” with “North”, at 
the end of the first and third lines, the end of 
the second and last lines are not rhymed at all 
—and this is a song, as well as a poem! 

“Comparisons are odious”, therefore we will 
not attempt any substitute translation at this 
time, but we promise if we ever do that at least 
the tunefulness of the original shall be preserved. 


There is a species of hybrid leech that has 
come into existence of late years, known as the 
“food speculator.” He is a sort or hirudinean 
biped bearing a striking resemblance to man, 
but without possessing any of those special 
characteristics which usually distinguish the 
animal from the human. 

He is closely related to another species of 
the same genus, known as the “financial ex¬ 
ploiter.” 

He has such a penchant for pelf that he will 
do anything outside of jail to further his ends. 
He has gotten into the game of corralling the 
food market, now that war is on and furnishes 
a plausible pretext for hoisting prices. 

Of all the rapacious, shrivel-souled scoundrels 
that ever skulked at large without a chain and 
muzzle, he is the king. A last year’s bird-nest 
is a plethora of throbbing, incubated life com¬ 
pared with this creature’s heart. He is man¬ 
kind’s greatest unhung villain. 

He is so obsessed with the craze for money¬ 
getting that he sees no wrong nor has he any 
pangs of conscience in oppressing or starving 
the people who are bending every energy, giv- 



352 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


ing their scant treasure and even their lives 
if need be, in defense of the rights of humanity. 

That such a parasite is permitted to live at 
all is a seeming sanction of the cynical notion 
that “the devil takes care of his own.” 


The other day I heard some one say: “A 
man who fights for his country instead of 
fighting for the almighty dollar, is a goat.” 

But after all, good friends, there is something 
in this world more than “tinkling peace”; there 
is something besides amassing wealth, some¬ 
thing besides commercialism. It is by struggle, 
by being “tried by fire,” that the true virtue 
of the human above the mere brute asserts 
itself. The heroic deed, like the self-sacrificing 
act, bespeaks the noblest instinct in man, and 
makes this world something better, something 
more significant than a mere place to sleep 
and eat in, or to gather to ourselves the tin¬ 
seled toys and transient joys of self-aggrandize¬ 
ment. For my part— 

I like to play a game where things are not the 
same, 

Or common as a money-making scheme, 
Where everything is done for principle or fun, 

With now and then a chance to have a dream. 
And if your time you spend in the cheering of 
a friend, 

Or in doing things from selfishness remote, 

Is a sort of “butting in” on the grafter and his 
kin, 

Why then, I say, just let me be the Goat. 



EDITORIALS 


353 


Will some peoples in this world never learn 
the force of maxims which have been accepted 
by the world as fixed truths from which there 
is no escape? Had the German government 
and its people obeyed these great warnings 
gleaned from scripture and the experience of 
mankind they would not now be floundering 
in the slough of despair. A few of these occur 
to us as we note the final stages heralding the 
ending of the world war; they are, substan¬ 
tially— 

Might does not make Right. Whom the 
gods would destroy they first make mad. Truth 
crushed to earth shall rise again. For they 
that have sown the wind, shall reap the whirl¬ 
wind. Pride goeth before destruction, and an 
haughty spirit before a fall. Twice is he armed 
that hath his quarrel just; and he but naked, 
though locked up in steel, whose conscience 
with injustice is corrupted. Fools rush in where 
angels fear to tread. Stealing the livery of the 
court of Heaven to serve the Devil in. Who 
lives by the sword shall perish by the sword. 


This war business isn’t pleasant; many be 
lieve it isn’t necessary, some even charging 
it up to the machinations of the rich. But 
here’s what we think about it: 

The “talker” will say, in his off-handed way,. 
That war is the poor man’s gall; 

But if men hadn’t fought for the rights they 
have bought 

He wouldn’t be talking at all! 



354 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


Like all things of use, war has its abuse 
In the crush of the weak by the strong, 

And Justice must fight for the triumph of Right 
Or perish from onslaught of Wrong. 

Tis the Heart in the Cause, and the Soul in 
the Laws 

That shall govern the world some day; 

May the banner lead in that God-given creed 
Be the Flag of the U. S. A.! 


In the two years’ war of 1812, Baltimore was 
attacked (August, 1814) by land and water. 
During the bombardment, Francis Scott Key, 
who had gone to the enemy fleet under a flag 
of truce to obtain the release of a friend, could 
see the Stars and Stripes blowing over Fort 
McHenry from the deck of the enemy's flag¬ 
ship. The commander boasted to Key that the 
American garrison could not hold out over 
night, and that Baltimore would surely be taken. 
At early dawn Key was up to watch for a 
glimpse of the American flag. When he beheld 
it still waving he knew that the attack had 
been unsuccessful, and in the exultation of his 
spirit he wrote the famous song, “The Star 
Spangled Banner,” which has become America’s 
national anthem. 


There is a peculiar charm in dwelling on the 
lives of great men and women, not only by 
reason of the intrinsic interest evoked by the 
characters themselves, but from the pleasure and 
satisfaction engendered in tracing the influence 
they exerted over the age in which they lived, 




EDITORIALS 


355 


the causes which produced that influence, and 
the effect of their lives and work upon not only 
their contemporaries but upon succeeding gen¬ 
erations,—upon us, as individuals. Not the least 
of this influence is the encouragement given to 
the toiler who strives for the attainment of 
something really worthy—something ideal. For 
he finds that "with scarcely any exception the 
greatest and best—those who have said or done 
things of lasting benefit to mankind, sprang 
from a lowly or obscure station and through 
poverty, or sickness, or lack of encouragement, 
and sometimes all these together, won their way 
to the highest pinnacle of fame, fortune or 
power. 


I like to see the one who struggles longest 
Along the steep and rugged path to fame, 
Ascend triumphantly above the strongest 
And reach the lofty summit, just the same. 

Tis not by sudden leaps the world progresses, 
‘Tis not by easy stages things are done 
Which on futurity the seal impresses 
Of valor merited or honor won. 

For though fair Spring a joyous hope engenders, 
And Summer echoes her alluring call, 

It is the grandeur of autumnal splendors 
That makes the crowning glory, after all. 



356 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


It was the custom of the Vikings to make a 
sign resembling that of a cross before worship¬ 
ping at their shrines or in drinking a toast to 
some favorite king or leader. But this sign was 
intended to represent the famous Hammer of 
the god Thor, the Northern Jupiter. When, 
therefore, Christianity was introduced amongst 
them, the transition from the “Sign of the 
Hammer” to the “Sign of the Cross” was com¬ 
paratively easy, owing to the close resemblance 
of the two figures, and some writers attribute 
the speedy, although somewhat belated, con¬ 
version of the Northmen to this striking coin¬ 
cidence. 

Mjolner, the ponderous, short-handled ham¬ 
mer of Thor, in whose hand it was anciently 
supposed to have caused the detonation in the 
heavens and among the mountains during wiiat 
we now term a “thunder storm,” was an em¬ 
blem of Strength and Courage—the most promi¬ 
nent characteristic of the Vikings. 


The Ring Draupnir, as is well known by • 
those familiar with Viking lore, was worn by 
Balder the Good, favorite son of Odin and 
brother of Thor, and had the wonderful prop¬ 
erty of reproducing itself nine fold every ninth 
night. Being essentially an emblem of good¬ 
ness, it had, therefore, the peculiar property of 
Goodness—that of begetting the very thing 
it represents; “the more it gives the more it 
has to give.” 



EDITORIALS 


•J K *7 

OO i 


If there’s one thing that makes us more tired 
than trying to crank a dead engine when the 
gas is all out of the tank, it’s the man who 
never comes around except when he wants 
something. He is what we call “The Eleventh- 
Hour Man”. He will tell you that he don’t go 
out anywhere; that he likes to stay home even¬ 
ings with his family; and, besides, he has had so 
many expenses he couldn’t keep up his dues. 
All of a sudden he gets out of work, or sickness 
overtakes him or his, or he wants your support 
or recommendation for this or that—for what? 
He has done nothing to merit it. He hasn’t 
helped along with the lodge or any other thing 
in which you are interested,—still he wants you 
to make some sacrifice or go out of your way 
to help him! You may do something for him 
on the score of racial affinity, but gee whiz! 
it’s hard pulling! Now, if he were a good, all¬ 
round fellow, ready with his shoulder to the 
wheel, right there with us all the time, taking 
a couple of nights off in the month and throw¬ 
ing in his little fifty cents or so to foot the bills, 
and then he comes to us in trouble—say! Why, 
it’s a pleasure to lend a helping hand to such a 
man. 

But the Eleventh-Hour ' Man,—here’s how he 
appears to us: 

The ’leventh-hour man belongs to a clan 

Who never come ’round when they’re needed, 
But when for himself there’s a chance for some 
pelf 

The summons is never unheeded. 


358 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


He’s seldom at lodge, his duties he’ll dodge, 
“And the dues are a burden to carry”; 

But when he needs help, like a dog he will yelp, 
And pester you like the “Old Harry”. 

Some time at the gate of St. Peter he’ll wait, 
Expecting admission within it; 

But old Peter will say, as he turns him away: 
“Your Zepp’lin goes down in a minute.” 

“I think a whole lot more of George Wash¬ 
ington since I read your tribute to his mem¬ 
ory,” is the way a reader put it recently. Well, 
that’s exactly presents our reason for writing it, 
and we appreciate the acknowledgment. The 
writing of a life of a great and noble character 
has the double effect of interesting the reader 
and teaching a lesson-—in other words, “pointing 
a moral and adorning a tale.” 


The best definition of a Friend we ever heard 
is this one: “A friend is one who knows all 
about you and likes you just the same.” Talk¬ 
ing about friends, was there ever a friend in this 
world—or can it be possible there is to be any 
friend in the world to come, like a fellow’s 
mother? There is—alas, too often there was—- 
a friend who, whether or not she knows all 
about you, loves you just the same. Young 
man, young woman, heed this before it is too 
late: “When sickness overtakes you, when .the 
one you loved forsakes you, and when the world 
you wander all alone. When friends you haven’t 
any, in your pocket not a penny, there’s a 
mother always waiting you at home.” 




EDITORIALS 


359 


This translating business without someone in 
the front office to head off intruders, is a good 
deal like trying to play a sonata in a boiler 
factory. 

Just as we had finished the foreword to 
Tegner’s “Axel” and had started on the prelude 
with— 


That olden time is dear to me,— 

The virile Carolinean season, 

With all its consciousness and reason, 
And love of power and victory. 

Still lingers in the northern twilight 
Its after-glow in azure skylight,— 

in rushes a fellow and wants to know if we can 
change a twenty-dollar bill! Great Scott! 

But that “prelude” went glimmering right 
there. Money and poetry won’t mix in con¬ 
versation, and that’s' strange, too, because they 
say “money talks”. Maybe it does, but the only 
thing we ever heard it say is, “Goodby”! 

Then we grabbed our hat, and, catching a 
street-car, rode as far as the end of the line, 
walked half a mile through a pine wood and 
found a nook on its farther side near the river. 
Here we laid down under an arching clump of 
willows, lighted a cigar, listened to chirping of 
the birds overhead, and went to day-dreaming. 
Suddenly Sehlstedt’s lines from “I Skogen” 
burst upon our memory: 

And free as a sparrow in God’s spreading green, 
I flutter and flounder and fly, 

And if I would take a “siesta” serene 


360 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


A couch in each bush I espy. 

One gets a bit damp and tanned by the sun, 
But Lord, what a transport of fun! 


And— 


but to save us we couldn’t remember the rest. 

We yanked a newspaper out of our pocket, 
and our eyes fell upon this announcement: 

“The Russians made a night attack on both 
sides of Brzezany and Zwyzyn!” Gee! some 
attack, we bet! Especially on both sides of 
them! 

But where did we leave off on “I Skogen”? 
We glanced at our watch,—Gee whiz, half¬ 
past seven! But look! the sun is setting and 
casting splashes of mottled gold into the shim¬ 
mering waters of the river; the birds have 
ceased their twittering and—Ah ! Sehlstedt! 

“Men solen har slutat sin hirntnelska gang,— 

Wait a moment, let’s translate that,— 

But the sun has finished his heavenly tour, 

And fatigued sinks into the deep; 

And the hills with their mystical lullaby lure 
The low-nodding flowers to sleep. 

All nature would rest, the birds quit their flight,— 
Sleep sweet, little songsters, good night! 


The difference between a miser and a grafter 
is that one destroys the joy of labor to save 
money, and the other destroys the joy of money 
to save labor. In short, one is a fool and the 
other is a knave, and both are leagues away 



EDITORIALS 


361 


irom the good things in life. “It is better to be 
a beggar and spend your money like a king, 
than to be a king and spend your money like 
a beggar.” Ill-gotten gains are soon exhausted, 
for there is no pleasure in their possession. It 
is best to be just, to be honest, not only be¬ 
cause the law of God and man says so, but be¬ 
cause it squares with the conscience and the 
laws of nature. What matters it if the world 
does not know it,—YOU know it, and therein 
lies the secret of happiness; and happiness is the 
real standard of success. 


There is one ailment which is not common to 
Scandinavians. It is known to the medical pro¬ 
fession as aelurophobia. It is defined as an 
“abnormal dread of felines”-(cats). Shakespeare 
(Merchant of Venice, Act IV, Scene 1) tells us 
that “some * * * are mad if they behold a 

cat.” According to tradition, Henry III of 
France swooned whenever he caught sight of a 
cat. Napoleon Bonaparte had a morbid horror 
of them, so did also one of the German Ferd¬ 
inands. We know many women (none of them 
Scandinavians, however) who won’t have a cat 
in the house. 

Freya, Odin’s wife, held cats sacred and used 
them to draw her chariot. With- many Scan¬ 
dinavians it is considered a sin to drive a cat 
away, and most of them have a “pussy” purring 
in the corner. As for ourselves, we, love cats, 
and at home had never less than two, some¬ 
times more, for pets; and we were never 
troubled with mice or rats. We are glad we are 
not afflicted with aelurophobia. 



362 


TREASURES OF THE NORTHLAND 


Theodore Roosevelt 


Amid the rejoicings of victory and the hom¬ 
age paid the president of the United States in 
Europe, comes the sad news that Theodore 
Roosevelt is dead. There is a gleam of com¬ 
fort in the thought that he lived to see the 
land he so ardently worshipped rise triumphant 
in the world’s strife as the greatest power on 
earth for the betterment of mankind. 

Theodore Roosevelt was the embodiment of 
true manhood, true citizenship, true patriotism. 
No one, whatever his party affiliations, will 
deny this. He will go down in American his¬ 
tory as one of its greatest sons. It was he 
who stood for the family life, the home filled 
with children. It was he who, proud of his 
country, sent its fleet around the world in 
order that other nations might see how great 
his country was, and thereby inculcated a re¬ 
spect for its flag and institutions such as it 
had never enjoyed before. It was he who, by 
his powerful influence as president of the United 
States, built the Panama Canal, linking the 
two great oceans and the opposite shores of 
America in a chain of commerce and civiliza¬ 
tion whose binding influence on the future 
development of the country, especially the 
West, is beyond measure, and which will ad¬ 
vance the building of its empire more in the 



EDIT ORIALS—ROO SE VELT 


363 


next quarter of a century than otherwise could 
have been looked for in a hundred years. 

As a man, his most striking characteristic 
was Consistency. He lived the life he taught; 
he backed his words with deeds, and when it 
is considered how strenuous were his words it 
will be realized how vigorous were his acts. 

He loved' nature and its numerous manifesta¬ 
tions of the divine law of being. He advocated 
the doctrine of “don’t tread on me,” regarding 
the rights of a nation, and enlisted in the war 
against Spain as an earnest expression of that 
belief. He espoused the cause of his country 
in the great world war, and, although not eli¬ 
gible himself on account of age, sent his four 
sons to a foreign land with a courage and 
self-sacrifice splendid to behold, even when the 
news came that one of them had fallen in 
battle. 

It is good for the growing generation of 
this country that such a man has lived as 
Theodore Roosevelt. His character will be 
reflected in its sons for generations yet to come, 
in the high quality of his citizenship, the manli¬ 
ness of his recreations, the energy of his under¬ 
takings and the patriotism that placed his coun¬ 
try first in every consideration that moved his 
noble soul. 


360 90 








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